Maelstrom 21 Dusk
by illmatar
Summary: What happens when the council discovers it's been manipulated, and Vector Sigma sends most of Cybertron off to kill them, including Omega Supreme. M for mature themes, language, and violence! Lots of violence! Part 21! Read first on pain of confuzzion.
1. Chapter 1

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34  
Dusk  
Part A

x  
x  
x

Rodimus and Lancer landed hard - again. That they were in the same courtyard outside of Central was no surprise. That everyone they had said goodbye to so long ago was standing in roughly the same place was a surprise. The teleport left them ill, but Lancer caught sight of her kids and moved, almost shocking Malice into dropping the baby.

Certainly the telekenetic thought the tears and obsessed inspection was a bit over the top.

Rodimus morphed and pounced on his partner. "Optimus! What day is it?"

"RODIMUS! WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING BACK HERE ALREADY?!" Optimus roared.

"Already?! WHAT DAY IS IT?!"

"It's your anniversary Moron!" Magnus said rudely. He was pissed. Rodimus was in a dangerous state and had no business playing games with everyone's safety.

"WHAT YEAR?!" Rodimus demanded.

"Huh?" Magnus asked.

"Rodimus...we didn't mess with the date that much!" Elita told him.

Rodimus shook his head in frustration. "How long have we been gone?" he asked.

"About three minutes!" Optimus snapped. "Why are you wasting time? Go already!"

"I've been gone!" Rodimus insisted. "We've been gone for almost a YEAR! I need a piece of paper!"

"WHAT?!" cried the crowd, pretty much in unison.

"Lancer and I crossed dimensions. We've been there for months! We need to meet. Everyone! Maelstrom crew, command staff! Everyone! Just as soon as I see my kids and you get me a piece of paper and something to write with!"

"But!" Optimus said weakly.

Rodimus cussed creatively and morphed down, still cussing. Then he joined Lancer in making much of the kids while Pagan teleported. She came back with the "requested" piece of paper and a pen from Lancer's quarters on the ship.

Lancer smiled thanks at her friend and wrote "We made it!" with a cross-eyed smiley face. She put the teleporter on it and activated it. The paper disappeared, only to reappear a few seconds later with a new message written right underneath the first.

"You are lucky you got out when you did Asshole!" it read. "Why did you take two weeks to tell us you got home?"

"I want every one of the council and as many of the Maelstrom crew as will come in the council chambers in half an hour," Rodimus ordered.

"You can't be serious! We just got rid of you!" Optimus protested hotly. "Rodi - you need to rest! You are a danger to everyone here!"

Rodimus debated morphing back to robot mode to argue, but he was holding Edana's hand and was loathe to let it go. He had worried about his partner and the Autobots, but he had missed his children more than he thought possible. Edana, at least, seemed to understand how much seeing her meant to him. Alexandra was resting comfortably against Lancer's shoulder and he leaned in for a second to kiss her.

Then he turned back to his partner. "Let me repeat this slowly. We were gone for nearly a year. We were in an alternate or parallel universe. I just spent months cooped up in Carly's house with a humanized Magnus, Arcee, Springer and freaking HOT ROD! Not to mention Daniel Witwicky who progressed from nearly three to thirteen months of age while we were there!"

"Daniel?" Marissa cried.

"Hot Rod?" Magnus asked simultaneously.

"Right," Lancer said. "In Carly's house. So one more word about leaving again Optimus Prime and I am going to personally shove your head up your tail-pipe." She looked at her friends. "Guys, we need to be in on this one. I promise you, what we learned is relevant. You should all be there, even Robert. Pagan, even Kain will want to hear this, if you can get him to come. Tell him we may have found... clues that will get him home faster. Malice... Shellshock needs to come. He just needs to."

"This is all preposterous," Optimus said.

Rodimus ignored that and met Malice's uncertain eyes. "Malice, tell Shellshock I need him there. It's true. I need him there. Please... convince him to come. Half an hour....just to let us be with the girls and catch our breath. Claudia... Claudia should hole up with the kids." Rodimus sighed and hung his head. He looked at Magnus. "Get Spike. Get Kup."

"Spike doesn't want to come within a parsect of you!" Magnus said. "And I don't want to be within a parsect of Kup!"

"Tough shit all around," Rodi said. "Spike is still our liaison and he needs to hear this. Kup does too. Give me any lip about it and I'm taking eleven months of stress right out of your hull. I'm serious Mags. Get them. Half an hour."

Optimus was far from convinced his partner was telling the truth about being in a parallel universe, but for Rodimus to request Kup, Spike, and Shellshock all in one room was enough to convince Op something more than vacation-avoidance was going on. He fumed, but quit arguing.

x  
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x

Lancer and Rodi headed for the council chamber, planning to take advantage of a few quiet minutes to spend with the girls. Edana saw her mother scanning her and Alex with the Jabez scanner, but that was nothing to wonder about. Both her parents did that to everybody. Lancer kept her face carefully neutral, but Edana felt the frown when her mother scanned her.

Alex fell asleep almost as soon as they were out of the noisy courtyard, but Edana was understandably confused.

"Mom, I thought you said you were going to be away for a while," she asked. She always looked to her mother for things involving scheduling and discipline - it was Lancer who decided such things as far as Edana could tell, but it was Rodi's hand she held.

Daddy wasn't around much, and when he was it was time to play.

"I did, 'Dana...and we were gone for quite a while in a way. We had a problem with the teleporter and to us we were gone a long time, but we got it to bring us back to you before you even missed us. Are... are you disappointed? You can still stay with Aunt Malice if you want. I don't think she'd mind and Evan likes it when you're there."

Edana shook her head, "Not if you and Daddy are home. You missed me."

Her parents exchanged glances and the young empath felt things transfer between them. She knew they were relieved to see her, worried about her, and mostly she felt how keenly they loved her. She wasn't old enough yet to really interpret what she felt, but to her worry and love went hand in hand. She didn't mind it.

"We did miss you, Lady Girl," Daddy told her. "But that doesn't mean you have to give up time with your friend."

"Evan's not really my friend Daddy. His heart is like Alex's. He's a baby, and he can't grow up even though he wants to," Edana said. "He likes me, but he makes me sad sometimes because he doesn't understand stuff and it makes him sad. I play with him so he won't be so sad."

Her parents exchanged another surge of thought between them. She always knew when they were communicating even though she couldn't hear them. There was a bond of energy she could see with her mutant eyes and the aura flared brighter on the side of the sending adult. It never dawned on her to comment on it. It was so much a part of them she assumed everyone saw them that way.

"That's nice of you to play with him," Rodimus said. He picked her up and put her on his shoulders since what was a short walk to an Autobot could be a real trek for a human, especially if they were only six. "I'm proud of you," he added.

That was unnecessary. She knew that already, but she didn't mind him telling her so. She laced her hands on top of his head and rested her chin on that while he walked. Edana felt how happy he was to be home, but also a sense of urgency he was trying to control, and the pain that was so much a part of him was very near the surface.

Nothing new there, except how fresh it seemed...like when she pulled off a scab before it was quite ready and the spot hurt even though it was mostly healed. She giggled when he bounced her and tried to make her happiness to be with him grow out of her and into him.

It worked, like a kiss on a scraped knee, and he reflected happiness back at her. It spread to Mom too, and they played their way to the shiny room by making sure no one saw them. She had to get down to work on her quiet walk and hiding, but she was small and she loved this game. Hiding from Autobots was easy anyway. Their feet made so much noise it was hard to see how they would ever hear her anyway - except for Daddy. Daddy was quiet. In spite of the noisy feet, Mom liked it when Edana practiced, so she did.

They made it to the conference room without being spotted and found it empty. Daddy went big for them so he could put them up on the table where the human seats were. She giggled when he picked her up and held onto his thumb by wrapping her arms and legs around it instead of stepping off like she was supposed to.

"Ew," he said. "What is this thing? It's all sticky and nasty! Get it off!" He shook his hand gently like she was a wad of gum he couldn't get rid of. Laughing, she clung tighter and managed to escape up to the side of his arm, clinging to the pipes that ran along it like a monkey. He plucked her off with two fingers and plopped her down in front of her mother.

"Do you know what this stuff is?" Rodimus asked his mate. He leaned on the conference table and morphed down. As soon as he pulled himself the rest of the way up, Edana attached herself to his leg. He lumbered slowly over to where Lancer sat, cuddling the baby.

"Not a clue. Looks like we'll need to put you through a car wash to get rid of it though. It seems fairly stuck."

"Maybe tar-remover would help?" Rodimus suggested thoughtfully.

"I dunno," Lancer returned. "I think it may take a fire-hose...or a paint scrapper."

Optimus wandered in a few minutes later and found his partner walking in circles with a hysterically giggling six-year old still clinging to his leg with all four limbs. Rodimus was making jokes about how he was never going to be able to move from this spot again as he could only make left turns. Lancer was laughing and talking to Alex about how silly her father and sister were.

Optimus paused on the threshold, thinking for a ridiculous instant he could retreat before they noticed him. He hated to break this moment up, and wondered, briefly, what the hell they had been thinking sending Rodimus on vacation away from his kids. The surge of affection he felt towards his young co-leader took him a bit by surprise, but he didn't question why that should be.

Just as Optimus was about to retreat back through the door and block all comers, Rodimus looked up and met his optics. Somehow Optimus sensed Rodimus knew that he was planning to stall the meeting.

Edana looked up at her father and gave his leg another hug. Time for grown-up stuff. She let go and went to Lancer's side, a tiny bit disappointed. She didn't pout exactly, but her smile was gone. Lancer kissed her and gave her a one-armed squeeze.

"When this is over," Lancer whispered in her daughter's ear, "we are going to kidnap Daddy and he is going to spend a week with you, because I said so. That's a promise."

Edana nodded and smiled. Lancer brushed the girl's wispy red locks out of her eyes.

"Well?" Rodimus asked, eyeing his partner.

"They are on their way," Optimus answered with a sigh. "Kup sounds incredulous, and I had to call Spike personally to get him here. He wasn't going to listen to Magnus." The Senior Prime professionally suppressed his annoyance at Rodi's question. Did Rodimus think he was incapable of calling a simple meeting together...even if some of those called hated Rodimus deeply?

Rodimus paused, stared piercingly at his partner and nodded.

"Don't be sad, Daddy," Edana said.

"Aw, geez Lady Girl," Rodimus said. He went over to his daughter and knelt in front of her. "I'm sorry. I'm happy to see you, and maybe...maybe Spike and I can learn to be friends again. That's part of what this meeting is for, OK?"

"Yeah. Will you come play with me when you are done?"

"If it isn't past your bedtime I will, and I'll come say goodnight even if it's really, really late. Deal?" Rodimus asked.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed for all she was worth. Six or no, she was Lancer's child, and all she was worth was pretty strong. Strong enough to make Rodi's eyes water.

Or something like that.

x  
x  
x

A few heartbeats later, more grim-faced, worried, annoyed and aggravated grown-ups started to arrive. Their collective emotions started pressing on Edana's shields. She was getting pretty good at shielding and Claudia was doing the best she could to teach the girl, but Claudia's own empathy was damaged.

The skills she showed Edana were skills she no longer possessed.

For a child of six, Edana had done very well learning what Claudia could only describe, not demonstrate. Now though, there were too many people in the room, and to her empathic senses it was like a large crowd had descended to shout at her all at once. She only flinched a little, but her parents both saw, and the next thing she knew Aunt Pagan was there and it was time to kiss her parents goodbye again.

Just for a few hours though, this time.

Edana felt her mother's worry and thankfulness as Pagan took both girls and teleported them off to the Maelstrom where Claudia would watch them and help Edana work on those faltering shields.

x  
x  
x

Pagan disappeared with the girls and Lancer turned to her mate, clinging to him somewhat desperately. Optimus shook his head, able to count on one hand the times he'd seen Lancer get emotional this way. Angry, sure. Vulnerable? Not so much. Maybe this "gone for a year" business wasn't as far fetched as it sounded.

x  
x  
x

The council chamber had never been so crowded. In addition to the usual group, there was Kup, Spike, and the entire Maelstrom crew except for Claudia. Optimus had never even met Robert or Kain before, although it was Shellshock who, as always, captured his attention.

Nothing about the man spoke of Goldbug. Not one nuance or gesture.

He and Spike didn't even acknowledge each other. Hadn't they been best friends at one point? Optimus couldn't even remember if Spike had ever met Shellshock, and now...and now they were both shell-shocked.

They ran out of chairs, so Kain and Pagan chose to sit on the tabletop. Lancer sat on Rodi's shoulder. She had a tube of paper rolled up in her hand that she'd pulled from their luggage. Rodi stood. Magnus stood too.

Optimus had the distinct impression the City Commander was guarding Kup...or rather, guarding everyone else from Kup.

We're fragmenting, Optimus realized. In spite of our best efforts, we are losing each other. We need to heal these ruptures. Even me and Rodi - we've forgiven, but we haven't forgotten. Even now, this meeting scares me. What are you up to Partner-mine? I can't help it. I'm suspicious. Will I ever really trust you again?

People milled around, getting comfortable, and while they did Lancer handed Rodimus sheets of chart paper which he hung on the wall at the front of the chamber.

"Hey! That's my writing!" Marissa cried to no one in particular.

"Some of it's....mine?" Magnus answered her.

Once everyone was settled Rodimus turned to face the lot of them. They expected him to address them but instead he hung his head, then shook it.

Lancer got a funny, incredulous smile on her face.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Rodimus said. "OK everybody. Thanks for coming to our little party. If you haven't heard, we made it Florida for our vacation...just not this time or this dimension. We landed in a parallel universe and spent a long time there. We learned a lot - about ourselves, about our enemies, about all of you. All or none of it may be relevant. Most of it is disturbing in one way or another, but if nothing else I think there are leads worth pursuing here. They might even lead us to the Jabez."

There was a lot of muttering after that statement and he was content to let it die down while he fought with his better judgement and his honor to an uncomfortable promise.

"I...I um...Well...." Rodimus paused again.

"Oh if you're gonna do it just get it over with", Lancer prodded, still smiling.

Rodimus sighed, sagged, and finally squared his shoulders.

"I..um...promised our hosts that I would play this video before doing anything else. I haven't seen it either so I have no idea what atrocities they have visited upon me, but I'm sure, if nothing else, it should be... interesting."

"You haven't screened it?" Magnus asked incredulously.

"I promised not to," Rodimus said, very quietly.

"So when has that ever stopped you?" Magnus demanded. "Who the hell got you to make a promise like that?"

"Carly," Rodimus whispered. He started the video, just as Spike was surging to his feet, ready to storm out in a fury.

What he saw on the screen froze him in his tracks.

Himself...his wife...and an infant that could only be Daniel. They filled the wall behind Rodi's head. Sitting on a couch all together. The perfect little happy family. He wanted to kill someone, and he knew just which someone too.

x  
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x

"Hi everybody," Carly said to the camera with an awkward wave. "Hopefully this really IS everybody and not just Rodimus breaking his word. Asshole, if it is just you go get them. Go get Spike. You promised. This isn't just about you or the Jabez...it's about Spike." She looked so beautiful and so very young.

"That's right," Spike on the screen said firmly. "Look, we don't know who's watching, but Magnus, if you are there, can you please make certain that flame-colored moron doesn't make a move to stop this tape before we're done? There are things you need to know I can just see him omitting 'for your own good' and we have all decided to scuttle his plans for martyrdom. If my twin isn't there, get him."

x  
x  
x

Rodimus stopped the film. "Well that's enough," he said lightly.

"Give it," Magnus said, meaning the projection control.

Before a scuffle could ensue the video started up again.

"LANCER!" Rodimus roared. Sending a signal to a remote was something she had been able to accomplish since before she was even fully aware she was a mutant.

"You promised," she said.

"But..."

"Give it here Rodi," Elita said. She swiped it right out of his hand before he even knew she was up and moving. Lancer smiled. Elita had taken to assassin's training quite well.

The couple on the screen resumed speaking.

x  
x  
x

"We need you to know that Lancer and Rodimus landed in our yard. We were playing host to four humanized Autobots and one Decepticon," Carly said. She then described how the whole gang had been changed and gave a brief background on their universe.

x  
x  
x

"We're your PARENTS?!" Optimus interrupted at one point. Elita couldn't talk. She was pounding on the table in hysterics. Optimus merely looked shocked...and somewhat appalled.

"Try not to dwell on it," Rodimus sighed. He was too frightened by this video to join Elita laughing...and Magnus...and Marissa... Springer... Arcee... and dear God, Jazz.

x  
x  
x  
"When they landed, we were all suspicious of each other," Carly continued.

x  
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x

The Spike from this dimension stared at her on-screen with tears of grief and fury rolling down his face. This beautiful, happy woman. Vibrant, intelligent past all belief, with such a heart-full of courage and compassion... reduced to a screaming shell with hollow, crazed eyes, and not even enough awareness to use a toilet.

x  
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x

"They didn't tell us right away, what was happening in your dimension. They didn't tell us for a long time what happened to Daniel, but...Spike," Carly said, looking desperately into the screen as if to reach across space and time to make him hear her, "they did finally tell us."

Spike saw his twin nod. "They told us more than they told you...Me," the recorded Spike said. Then, as if he could see Rodimus surging towards the projector, the recording said, "SIT DOWN RODI! This is NOT about you! You think it is better that my twin never knows what happened to his son? I'M telling you, you are wrong! Magnus, Optimus! Somebody make him sit!"

x  
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x

Magnus couldn't make Rodi sit, there weren't any chairs, but he could stand between the young Prime and the projection equipment. He needn't have worried.

"Make one move and I'll short your circuits, Love," Lancer said.

Rodimus curled up, crouching on the floor with his face behind his knees.  
x  
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x

Carly continued, tears running down her face. She looked at the baby in her arms and looked at the screen again. "Spike," she whispered. "I know you know Daniel was Converted. What Rodimus didn't tell you was that he was...molested by the Slavers that killed him. They filmed it, and then when they were done torturing and raping your little boy, they put one of those horrible chips in his head with orders to rape me...I mean...his mother too. The idea was to humiliate and punish your family, because your actions made it harder for slave-runners to do their evil work. They wanted Wheelie's convert to film that rape and they wanted all of those videos to get out and circulate so that you could never escape the images of your family being hurt."

She broke down a bit, and sobbed quietly on her husband's shoulder. Spike-on-screen pulled his wife close and kissed the top of her head. Then he turned back to the camera.

"I know...that you are grief-stricken, and that you blame Rodimus for everything, especially for Carly being insane. He screwed up. He should have gotten Carly to safety first, but it wasn't because he didn't care! He went into shock. He went after the chip because he couldn't stand it being in your son. If he hadn't been there it would have been worse! It would have been so much worse!"

"She has a chance, Spike. I know...what she saw broke her," Carly insisted, "But not as much as being raped by her own son would have, and then he would have killed her. Rodimus never told you about the tape, but he watched it, I think he may have memorized it so he could find the people responsible. He did find them, by the way, and that was the end of them."

Her husband took over again. "Look...we figured out Rodimus really fast once he got here. At first, he wouldn't go anywhere near our son, but once he did it was like Danny was one of his own...or attached to his arm. He loves this little guy, and he loved your son too. You know that. That's why you feel so betrayed. Don't you see? He loved your son - and that's why his hand moved before he could think. If I...if I found someone I loved with bruises like that everywhere and a micro-chip in their head...I don't know that I'd take the time to come up with an elaborate plan either."

"It doesn't matter," Carly said fiercely, looking almost angry suddenly. "He made a mistake but it doesn't matter. Even if he did it on purpose you have to stop hating him so much. I want you to! Not for him, for you Spike! Well...for him too, but mostly for you. Your wife doesn't have a voice anymore, so I will give her one! Quit it! It isn't healthy! It isn't good for you! You can be angry and hurt and sad, but give the hate up! It hurts you and I want you to stop! I can't stand the thought that you might spend the rest of your life that way. If I could, I'd come over there just to shake some sense into you! She wouldn't want you to hate Spike! You know that! Not even the slavers! Not even the Jabez! Hating won't make her better! It might even make her worse, and it won't make what happened to Danny go away. You deserve better...and for that matter Rodi does too! He does the best he can...he's not perfect, he's not omniscient. He's just Rodi...and he does the best he can!"

x  
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Spike sobbed. Horrible, shuddering sobs of horror, rage, and over-whelming grief. Marissa ran to his side and tried to hug him, but he pushed her away. His face was blotchy, ashen, and furious.

On screen, his twin continued.  
x  
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"There's more to it also. The stuff we learned about Vector Sigma while they were here...it might help you understand, how this got so out of hand in the first place.. I know he was planning on telling you guys most of it, but we are worried he'll leave part of it out," Spike said. Then he looked at the camera and smiled a bit. "Sorry you promised yet Rodi? Lancer told Carly not to take too much advantage of the fact you can't say no to her... do you think this counts as too much? Consider it payback for all those cracks about my computer...and my swimming pool!"

x  
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x

"You guys are just lucky you're in another dimension," Rodimus growled into his knees. He couldn't stand up. He couldn't face the room. He couldn't face Spike who was still shuddering with emotion. At least the awful, wracking sobs settled down. Spike stared at the door, obviously thinking about leaving again, but after a long moment he went back to his chair. Marissa followed him, and giving Talon a meaningful stare, got the former EDC explosives expert to switch seats.

Marissa took Spike's hand. He didn't look at her, but he didn't pull away either.

x  
x  
x

On screen another, familiar voice from behind the camera said, "Just be glad by the time he sees this he'll be in another dimension Spike." Magnus.

"Is it our turn?" Marissa said, coming into the picture. Carly scooted over and patted the seat next to her. Marissa sat, and took the baby from Carly. She turned him to face the screen and waved his little hand at the camera.

"Say hi, Danny," she said. "Are you coming over too or what?" she asked. The camera wobbled a little.

"I'm just tightening the tripod," Magnus' voice informed her.

"Well don't overdo it!" Spike said. "It needs to come off some time too!"

"Fine," Magnus said, stomping over to the couch. There was no way he was fitting on it so he went around the back and leaned on it behind Marissa.

"While they were here," Marissa said, "Rodimus had a little breakthrough. That lovely death-wish he's been fostering, and this stupid idea you all seem to have that he's some kind of robotic child playing dress-up with the grown-ups...that all comes from Vector Sigma. It plants ideas in people it wants to control, and that idea was a way of keeping Rodimus under control. Of course now Rodi uses that to get away with things he normally wouldn't so we wanted to make sure that while he was cleaning house for all of you, that the notions he finds advantageous go too. In other words..."

"Quit falling for his crap!" Ultra Magnus snarled.

"Well, I wasn't going to put it so bluntly," Marissa said.

"These people are brain-washed! You have to be blunt!" Magnus said. "Quit falling for his crap! That goes double for you Ultra Magnus! The very thought that ANY version of me is eating that line of never-ending bullshit is so embarrassing I want to hurt someone! Preferably you...Me. He kept trying idiotic lies on me and always looked so damned surprised when I didn't go for it! Are you that stupid?"

"Magnus!" Marissa cried. "That's not nice!"

Magnus blinked at her, "Who said anything about being nice? Anyone gullible enough to fall for that shit over and over doesn't deserve Nice, Marissa! That goes for you too Optimus! And the rest of you! Garbage detail in the human sector! That's what they deserve! So they'll know shit when they see it!"

"Now they're glad you are in another dimension Magnus!" Spike said. Carly snickered.

x  
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x

Rodimus looked up from the floor at the screen. "With friends like these," he muttered.

"I see you made as good of an impression as always!" Magnus said to him. "What did you tell my twin? Why is he acting like this?"

Rodimus opened his mouth to find a way to pass this off as no big deal when the video went on with complicating his life.

Continued in Part B


	2. Chapter 2

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part B

Continued from Part A

"I bet you a lifetime's supply of energon, the Asshole is gearing up to make this seem like I'M the one that's overreacting and paranoid!" the video Magnus said. "Well, we are fortunate to have most of this fateful visit on tape! Aren't we Spike? Very useful, this camera! Spike bought it to capture the birth of his son, but it has proven very handy for more than that. The following is presented as evidence...keep it IN MIND...even if Vector Sigma is trying to make you forget it!"

What followed was a montage of disparate moments that were clearly spliced together from various pieces of footage.

First: "What are you doing Marissa?" Spike asked from behind the camera.

"Washing out the garbage can from your office. Asshole threw up in it this morning - something about Vector Sigma planting ideas in his head. Lancer got them out, but it gave him one hell of a migraine."

"Uh-huh," Spike's voice said. "And where is Asshole now?"

"Sleeping it off...they've been asleep for most of the day. Geez...I never knew orange juice could get so hard!"

Then: Rodimus himself, sitting on the couch, holding Daniel, and giving  
advice to what HAD to be Hot Rod as the younger twin was playing video games on the floor. Magnus and Rodimus were having a conversation between moments of back-seat playing. A black-haired beauty held the other controller and was obviously winning. Marissa wandered through in the background, and two other humans were sitting in other chairs. Both blonde...Arcee and Springer?

"I don't know how you haven't destroyed that thing already," Magnus was saying. "If I found out that someone, anyone, was manipulating the Bots and the Cons to fight the way they do...I don't think I could stop myself."

"It's our only means of reproduction," Rodimus said.

"I know that, but still!" Magnus growled. "I don't think I have that much self-control."

Rodimus grinned, and stood up, distracting Hot Rod who apparently lost his last life. The young twin threw his controller down in disgust.

"Once again the Decepticons are victorious!" the black haired girl crowed.

"Whatever," Hot Rod said, smiling.

"Oh you are so sad," the beefy blonde with Springer's voice said in the background.

Rodimus grinned at all of them and then faced Magnus. "Hello," he said. "Um, my name is Rodimus Prime, and I've been on the 'not-killing Vector Sigma' wagon for about eight years now. Thank you for joining my support group. I really feel that twelve steps isn't enough so we're upping it to a few thousand - give or take. This has been a bad week. I just found out it planted some really ugly doubts in my head and messed with most of my friends the same way too. I'm really, really tempted to fall off the wagon and just waste the lying piece of shit, but I think the fact it's in another dimension is helping me with that. I have a good support group at home. Optimus Prime is a good influence on me most of the time. He keeps reminding me that making my people extinct would be sorta bad. Sometimes my friend Magnus helps me not kill it to, but sometimes he needs my help. He's given me lots advice over the years, but sometimes he just wants to think of creative ways we can kill it. I don't regard that as positive influence at all." The room on screen exploded with laughter.

x  
x  
x

The room watching didn't laugh.

Magnus asked. "Vector Sigma's planting ideas in our heads? You mean at any time? You mean AFTER it programs us?"

Optimus was on his feet too. "Rodimus...you think Vector Sigma can manipulate our thoughts at will...?"

Rodimus stood back up and nodded. "Most often I think it likes planting suggestions," he glanced at Kup, "but sometimes it goes for direct control, too."

On screen the images shifted from Carly's house to Prime's office. They showed Rodimus standing, explaining their situation in his dimension to Optimus, Elita, and Kup.

Elita had asked to see Rodi's children and had remarked how pretty they were. This surprised no one in Rodimus' dimension, but when Kup's alternate agreed they were cute and exchanged jokes with Hot Rod about it every Autobot watching the film froze.

Rodimus turned to Kup and met his optics, while on-screen behind him he tore up a chair and ranted about Vector Sigma manipulating his friend.

x  
x  
x

"Think about it! Even his speech patterns changed! It wasn't Kup! And Kup doesn't even know it wasn't Kup! I'm so stupid! Lancer! What I said to him! I let Fucking Shit use him! I let it come between us! I left it an opening...AGAIN! This time I really am going to kill it....even if we can't reproduce without it we can't afford this virus in our midst!"

x  
x  
x

In the darkened council chamber Kup stared at Rodimus who stared back desperately.

"I'm sorry," Rodi mouthed soundlessly.

Magnus made a guttural sound deep in his chest. "Rodimus...are you telling us that Vector Sigma drove Kup to attack you and attack me? Are you telling us that it can break into our minds and make us turn on each other?"

"Yes. That's what I'm telling you," Rodimus said. "But I hadn't planned on just dumping it out like this!"

"I'm going now," Magnus stated.

"Not yet you aren't," Rodimus said.

"I'm going to kill it. It needs killing," Magnus stated.

"I'm with you Man!" Jazz chimed in.

"Exactly so," Optimus said unexpectedly. "Take care of it Ultra Magnus." It was unlike the senior Prime to be blood-thirsty, but he wasn't really in a killing rage like Magnus was...well...maybe a little. He was really agreeing with his on-screen partner's statement about Vector Sigma being a virus in their midst. It was too much of a liability, and it was fragmenting the council.

"Not until AFTER we have another way of reproducing AND until we have stripped its memory clean! We will, however, neuter its ability to touch anyone's mind! Give me some credit...and a few days! THEN I'll let you have it Magnus!"

Kup froze with shock. His brain teetered on the brink of neural crash. The confusion and self-loathing he had been struggling with for years...why HAD he turned on his friends like that? Why was it so hard to accept Lancer and the baby...babies now? When had his love for Rodimus turned so virulent? Answers never came to him. He remembered feeling and thinking terrible things and honestly tried to own up to them...but he couldn't put together WHY things had gotten so bad.

Now he knew.

The relief was profound, just to have an answer. That it wasn't entirely his fault was just an added bonus. That it WAS Vector Sigma's fault wouldn't catch up to him until later.

x  
x  
x

On screen behind Rodi and Magnus' defiant silhouettes, the evil conspirators went right ahead pushing their agenda down the council's throat.

"Moving right along," Marissa was saying. "We are sure you have seen, or will be seeing shortly, Rodi's lovely sheets of chart paper with all the hard work we all did for you laid out in marker. You owe us, by the way, for doing your jobs."

"That's what happens when people are brain-washed," Magnus complained. "They can't see the obvious, and they can't think straight."

"Right," Spike said. "By the way, sorry for throwing all of this at you at once, but we were worried Mr. And Mrs. Assassin might try to stop this and we decided getting it over with too fast was better than not at all."

"We want you to know what Rodi did to himself to get that done for you," Carly was saying. "You need to know the price was higher than some paper and some ink. I've never seen anything...quite like it.... Hey...does Spike's twin even know that Rodimus was tortured? Does he know about Goldbug being Shellshock?"

On screen Spike, Marissa, and Magnus looked at each other blankly.

"Probably not," Magnus mused. "Not the way Rodi thinks. He likes his secrets."

They looked at each other again and yelled at the camera. "SIT DOWN RODIMUS!"

x  
x  
x

It was a good thing too. Lancer was too much in shock to even short her mate's reflexes and he was almost to the projector.

The order they screamed wasn't enough to stop him, but it was enough to put Elita into motion and the assassin Prime was blind-sided (again!) by a fellow assassin. She leapt up and knocked him to the ground. Lancer sprang out of the way and landed on her feet. Rodi didn't really fight Elita while she pinned his hands to the floor and sat on his chest.

"I like these people," Elita remarked casually to her shocked friend on the floor. "They really have your best interests at heart don't they? And they know you quite well."

"I have to stop this!" Rodimus said.

"Oh, I don't think so," Elita said sweetly. "It's for your own good. Now be a good boy and behave or Momma might have to spank you."

"ELITA! You aren't my mother!" Rodimus cried. His voice had a panicky edge to it.

"No? Then quit acting like you need one. Behave! These friends of yours obviously are trying to look out for you!" Elita responded with a smile. Rodimus took the amused glint in her optics as a threat.

x  
x  
x

The video version of Marissa was explaining to an increasingly restless audience that they had learned things about the Jabez that had set Rodi out to analyze what they did to him. She didn't go into a lot of detail, explaining that they would leave that to Rodimus to explain.

x  
x  
x

"Oh sure! Leave that part for me and mess up everything else!" Rodimus roared from the floor. "Elita! Get off! I'll behave! But I may have to jump back across dimensions to kick some ass!"

x  
x  
x  
"We'd better hurry up and finish before he decides to come back and kill us," Spike-on-screen chuckled.

x  
x  
x

Spike-on-conference-table shook with confusion and adrenaline. Even knowing that Rodimus had killed Daniel didn't stop his twin from finding the Autobot leader amusing.

x  
x  
x

The other dimension's Ultra Magnus didn't smile. "Rodimus basically put himself right back into the Jabez torture chamber. We watched him go mad again right before our eyes. He fought through memory after memory and it ate him up body and soul. I was a Quintisson gladiator for most of my youth. I saw things I never want to think about and I don't know that I would have the strength to force myself through it like that even if I had reason to want to try. I can just see him telling you about it too. 'Yeah...we went over what kinds of experiments they did and came up with this list for their motives. Here it is!'" Magnus voice went all sing-songy and cheerful for imitating Rodimus, eliciting chuckles from Magnus' on-screen companions and glares at Rodi from nearly everyone in the conference room.

x  
x  
x

"What?" Rodimus asked. "I haven't even gotten to tell you anything! These jerks are doing it all. You don't know that they're right."

"Yes," Optimus snapped. "We do! You are a liar!"

x  
x  
x

"Well," video-Magnus growled. "Here it really is!"

Most of those watching gasped in shock.

The video cut again to Carly's dining room. There were papers and markers scattered hither and yon. Rodimus was sitting, blank-eyed in a chair, and Lancer stood, equally blank-eyed behind him.

"Geez," Hot Rod snarled, "This is a long one!"

"How long has he been out this time?" Carly asked, bringing cold drinks to everyone in the room.

"Almost five minutes," Marissa answered, glancing at her watch. " I think Lancer's getting tired, she's not getting him out as fast. Or maybe the memories are just that much worse. Carly...do you have any more pretzels or something? He's emptied that bowl too."

"No," Carly answered. "We're out again."

"I'll go get something," Spike told her, grabbing his keys. "How can a guy maintain his weight with all that sparring on nothing but orange juice and then waste away like this when he's just sitting around and eating a lot?"

It was true. The gasps of surprise hadn't been from Rodi's blank, flash-backing stare, but at his overall appearance. His hair was oily and unkempt, his eyes were sunken and bruised, and he was thin - like he was starving or ill. For a man who'd never so much as shown a cold, seeing him so far out of peak condition was amazing.

The scene cut back to Carly's living room and the four friends who sat on Carly's couch. Carly had tears running down her face again.

x  
x  
x

Spike frowned in the dark and felt Marissa squeezing his hand. His wife's twin looked so sad, so sorry for the man who killed their son. It was obvious she held no anger or resentment towards Rodimus; it was obvious she loved him. Of course, his Carly had also loved him...almost like a second son. She had always referred to him as Danny's "shiny big brother." She had worried equally for both of them when their forays into the back country had brought them home after dark. He remembered, painfully, sitting in the hospital with Danny coming out of anesthesia, his shattered arm bones fixed and pinned, and deliriously crying that Hot Rod had died to save his life.

Carly had clung to Danny's good hand with one hand, and to a phone with the other, trying to get through, trying to find out if Hot Rod lived. She had finally broken down into wracking sobs when she got through to Blaster and learned Hot Rod probably wouldn't make it until dawn....

Spike wondered, for the first time, what she would say to him about this now, if she could talk? Would she want him to be so angry? Spike sighed to himself. He didn't need to think about it. Carly didn't approve of hate, not ever.

x  
x  
x

On screen, Marissa was talking again. "I am a fully licensed psychologist, as well as an EDC officer, which I understand my twin is not. I have seen my share of post-traumatic stress, Magnus here not being the least of it. I am telling you, Rodimus nearly killed himself going through all of this and I am not exaggerating. I am also not exaggerating when I say he made himself clinically insane going over these memories. He had flash-backs at a rate of six to ten an hour on average. Sometimes it was a lot higher. If Lancer hadn't been there to pull his mind back over and over we might have lost him for good. He tried to kill Springer once, and he lost a good thirty percent of his body weight to stress. Make no mistake - he is psychotic and probably always will be underneath it all. Spike, if you are still listening, he went nuts watching your best friend get torn apart, watching human kids get their brains cored out, and getting raped himself by girls who were under the influence of a Jabez experiment. The shock of seeing Daniel messed up and Converted probably blasted him right into a psychotic episode. He's as crazy as your wife is. He just hides it better."

x  
x  
x

Spike finally was able to look at Rodimus, although he saw there was little chance of Rodi meeting his gaze. He felt other eyes on him though, and turned slowly around. That huge, alien looking man that lived on the Maelstrom with Lancer was staring at him. Golden eyes, golden skin. Spike's mind reeled around a little bit and the offhand things he'd heard them saying finally started to click. This was Shellshock, and Shellshock was really...Goldbug...Bumblebee. His friend...not dead...or maybe dead after all. The eyes that bore into him had no real sign of life, surely not of friendship. Instead they seemed to judge him, and find him lacking.

He turned back to look at Rodi, who glanced at him and quickly looked away. The question that rose in him was not what he would have predicted.

"Why...why didn't you tell me?" He whispered it to himself and not even Marissa heard him, but he held on to that question through the rest of the meeting. At least it was a reasonable question. At least it wasn't hate.

x  
x  
x

On screen, his twin and wife debated with Marissa and Magnus' twins about whether or not they had completed exposing everything they thought Rodimus might hide. Marissa added that she knew Rodimus was worried that his rape might have left him with children he didn't know about and Carly reiterated her message to Spike to let go of his hate.

Magnus then told his audience that there was more to this video but that most of it was just messages for Rodi and Lancer from their house-mates and something he called "The Montage of Stupidity." All four of them snickered wickedly over that, a sound which made Rodi's over-heated energon run cold. Spike explained that while the remainder of the film might not be needed for the council session, that it might be good for unwinding afterwards.

x  
x  
x

At this point, Elita turned off the projector and brought up the low lights of the room.

"Well, it certainly was interesting, Rodimus," she said, smiling sadly at him.

"I can't believe they just threw all of that out like that," Rodimus growled. The gears in his jaw and hands were audibly grinding. "At most I thought they were going to bitch about the pool or tease us...not this... exposure."

Optimus stood. "So...you trust them with this but not us?" The edge in his voice was accusing as it always was. To Rodimus it was like a small dagger - screwed up again Hot Rod. The difference was, this time Rodi knew that wasn't true and he fought back.

"They aren't at risk for a telepathic probe or Conversion, Optimus. Don't make this personal...besides...it's not like I planned them to learn any of this either."

Optimus pointed to the charts on the wall, especially the last, long list of experiments laid out in red. "The Jabez did all this to you and Goldbug."

"Yes."

"They...mated you with six females?"

"Yes."

"You think you might have children from these females?"

"If they weren't on the base when it was destroyed."

"You never told me that," Optimus whispered coldly.

"I didn't remember. I blocked that one out," Rodimus confessed.

Shellshock grunted, and Rodimus turned to look at him.

The former Autobot shrugged. "I wondered about that. I assumed you forgot because you never checked into it."

"You remembered?" Rodimus asked quietly.

"Yes...and don't worry. I went over Jordan's files and all the girls they put to us were on base when it blew. Otherwise I would have told you. I decided, under the circumstances, if you didn't remember it was probably better that way."

"You're positive?' Rodimus pressed. He couldn't help himself.

"I remember their faces," Shellshock promised.

"You knew what was happening?" Rodimus asked breathlessly.

"I couldn't see for myself, but I saw what they did to you," Shellshock explained.

"I couldn't see," Rodimus said.

"The top of your skull was in the way," Shellshock remarked matter-of-factly.

"The top of his skull...?" Malice asked.

Shellshock nodded at her. "They cut our heads open and attached wires to our brains to control our physical responses. How else were they going to get an erection out of us?"

Malice paled and looked ill and Lancer's low growl permeated the council chamber. Lancer didn't say anything, but she and Rodimus spent an obvious moment sending to each other before she stopped.

The rest of the Maelstrom crew, which had stayed pretty emotionally neutral through all the preceding drama, all raised eyebrows in surprise. This many complete sentences out of Shellshock was nearly a record. For him to reference what had brought him to them was unprecedented.

"Thank you Shellshock. I'm...relieved those poor girls are gone. I'd forgotten... more than I realized," Rodimus finally said. "I don't want to open your wounds, but I think it's important to know what they were after with us. If you see anything I got wrong or left out, please tell me. You were there by accident. I wasn't. They wanted a Matrix Bearer. I think the Quints chose me because the Matrix has been tampered with. Otherwise it could have been Optimus."

"Your list is complete as far as I can recall. It is accurate. You remember more than I. I passed out often when the pain was too much. You never did. Still, I am impressed you were able to pull that much together. You weren't exactly yourself," Shellshock said.

"Um...neither were you," Rodimus said.

Shellshock shrugged.

"Why do you say they wanted a Matrix-bearer Rodimus?" Elita asked. She was frightened by that thought, and she was hard to frighten.

Rodimus ducked his head and brought the room up to date in the way HE had intended from the start. He gave them a brief summary of everything leading up to the raid on the Quint base for a replacement crystal and then took them through what they found underneath the base. (He skipped the fight with the Dweller Leech and got a headful of amused annoyance from his mate. That skill for editing was what had inspired the disastrous video.)

His description of the Jabez city, their art, and the ubiquitous Matrix crystals brought cries of disbelief and consternation from his audience, but his explanation of how the crystals themselves were formed and "imprinted" caused an excited and disruptive round of speculation from the more scientifically minded in the room. Fortunately, bringing up images of the Jabez city and the Matrix cavern from Lancer's com-eye silenced everyone nicely.

Then Rodi had to wait a bit while Perceptor, Robert, and First Aid went back and forth about possible explanations and experiments.

Rodimus explained that if nothing else, the time under the base had shown him he needed to get past his hate and attempt to analyze his enemy.

He showed them the Primus frieze, retold the Primus story as depicted on the frieze, and then again as Primus had told it as accurately as he could.

Finally, he went over what he found most relevant in what the Jabez did to Goldbug, Astrotrain, and him .

Then he gave them his theory on the Jabez, the humans, and the Matrix sensitivity.

"You think this is all about breeding Matrix compatibility into the human population?" Optimus asked skeptically. "You think...you think Edana is Matrix sensitive?"

Lancer answered him. "We scanned her when we got back Optimus. She is...and if the scans are accurate then she will pass it consistently to her children. The Jabez have had it before, but only on the female lineage as a recessive gene...we think. Edana is the first to have it from both her parents, even though my side is weak."

"What about Alexandra?" Marissa breathed.

Lancer scowled. "Scanning her today was as futile as always."

Marissa shook her head, and met Lancer's eyes. She was one of the few the mutant had confided in on that score, and she knew Lancer was terrified for her younger daughter. Or was that OF her younger daughter?

Lancer turned to her ship-board friends. "My mate is the breeding male they've been working for. My children are the offspring they've been trying and failing to achieve for millennia. We need to figure out why they need them and we need to protect them at all costs... or the Jabez win, simple as that. I'm afraid. I'm afraid if my kids fall into their hands not only will the usual horrors befall them, but the Jabez will pull the plug on Earth. There won't be a need for a free range herd of humans for natural selection breeding anymore and somehow I don't see the Jabez as being the sort to just walk away. They're too fucking neat to leave loose ends."

"The crystals are the key," Jordan toned.

"Aren't they always? " Rodimus growled.

x  
x  
x

Things progressed rapidly at that point. For the Autobots, probing and containing Vector Sigma became top priority. Anything else would have to wait until they were certain they could operate without interference - and trust each other again.

For once, Kain didn't need to be pressured. He was no fan of anyone outside of his own species, but Converted Transformers might be what it took to bring his home-world under Jabez control. He stood up before Rodimus could even ask and volunteered his services with Vector Sigma.

Rodimus knew better than to insult Kain by thanking him. They made arrangements for the next day to pay the super-computer a visit it would never forget.

Once that was done, the Autobots would proceed with testing on the blank Matrix stones Rodimus had brought back. He presented Perceptor with about a quarter of them for study, keeping the rest in reserve in case of over-enthusiastic mad-scientist accidents. Perceptor expressed annoyance that his assistant KC was still off baby-sitting Decepticons.

Rodimus then handed First Aid his gift from Ratchet. The Autobots gasped when they heard who it was from, and gasped again when they learned what it was for. First Aid took his new interactive medical "assistant" from Rodimus with trembling hands. Rodimus pulled his medical officer close and whispered into his audio sensor that they needed to meet in private later.

Rodimus wanted to handle the matter of possible reproduction quietly, at least for now. The young Prime was just glad his "friends" from the other dimension hadn't spoiled this surprise for him too.

In the meantime, the Maelstrom would go hunting for the Jabez home-world, and look into the crystals on ship.

This settled, the meeting broke down.

Perceptor and First Aid practically floated out of the council chamber. Jazz was allowed to leave only after Rodimus got him to promise to stay away from Vector Sigma.

Optimus looked a bit surprised Rodimus went after Jazz with such a demand - until he got a look at Jazz's face.

The Specialist, who'd been oddly quiet throughout the meeting, still said nothing. He met Rodi's optics with his chin up defiantly.

"I'm not done with it yet Jazz....and believe me you want Kain to have a go."

Jazz looked from Rodi, to Kup, and finally to Shellshock. Then he nodded once, curtly, and Rodi let him go.

The Maelstrom crew teleported back to the ship, with the exception of Lancer. Before they left, Pagan promised she would bring the girls as soon as Lancer made it back to Rodi's quarters. Shellshock looked back at Rodimus just before they 'ported out.

"We should go over your list in more detail," the former Autobot said simply. "We may uncover more we have both forgotten."

Rodimus made a face. "I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I think you're right."

Shellshock nodded, and paused again to meet Spike's stare. He didn't speak, just closed the teleport circle with the rest of his ship-mates, and vanished with Pagan and the rest.

Rodimus froze in place.

Lancer sighed and activated her suit. She walked up behind her mate, the grace of her limbs lending an elegance to the unnerving suit, and wrapped her arms supportively around his waist. Mentally, she pushed the flashback aside. Rodimus leaned back towards her and felt her rest her head between the wings of his spoiler.

"I'm not sure I can go through that again," he whispered to her. "Not with him."

"You'll manage. I'll help," Lancer told him.

Rodimus muttered something unintelligible. It didn't sound like blessings.

Rodimus shuddered. The final few weeks of actual vacationing in the alternate dimension had done him good, but the Jabez and the feel of their fingers on his skin were still close...so close.

The regular council members knew his flashbacks when they saw them from past experience, but Kup and Spike were seeing them firsthand for the first time. The video had shown them what they were looking at.

Spike thought about saying something, but he couldn't...not yet. He needed to think about everything and decide where he stood before he could confront his son's killer. He stood up and quietly walked out. Glancing over his shoulder told him Rodi didn't watch him leave, but somehow he knew Rodimus tracked his every step.

Continued in Part C


	3. Chapter 3

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part C

Continued from Part B

Optimus went up to his partner, gripped Rodi's shoulder once in forced support and shook his head, "You sure know how to stir things up Rodimus. Every time I let you out of my sight you come up with something to throw my whole view of reality off track. I have to say though, three minutes is a record."

Rodimus smiled wanly. "What are friends for?"

Kup, still seated uncomfortably in his chair and refusing to look up, winced visibly.

"Rodi...are you alright?" Marissa asked, walking to the edge of the council table and looking up at him. She didn't really expect an answer - the council was used to judging Rodi's state by the degree to which he lied to them.

Rodimus opened his mouth, shut it, sighed, and said. "No. I'm not OK. I'm not hair-triggered like I was, but going over all of this has made me really...thin skinned."

Marissa's jaw gaped slightly, and Magnus made a big show of pulling out a scanner and going over Rodimus up and down.

"Who are you and what have you done with Rodimus Prime?" Magnus asked.

Lancer snickered and Rodi threw his hands up.

"You aren't funny Magnus," Rodimus snipped. "You should leave the jokes to the professionals."

"I can't believe you just up and admitted that," Marissa breathed in amazement.

"Lancer broke Vector Sigma's compulsion. I no longer feel the need to always be killing myself, even by inches," Rodimus said with a growl.

Lancer grinned. "Truth. He's getting reacquainted with it, although it is a strained relationship."

"I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by 'Vector Sigma's compulsion' Rodimus," Optimus admitted. "Or maybe...maybe I'm afraid I really do."

"It manipulates our thoughts. Mostly I think it takes what we would naturally think or feel to unhealthy extremes, but it can also plant thoughts in us, Optimus. Things it uses to control us. It's not just that it set us up at the outset of our lives to be pieces in its chess game. For me...for me in me, it's the 'Peter Pan syndrome'. That's what your twin called it Marissa. No matter what happens, I am really Hot Rod to myself and probably everyone around me. I will never be good enough, grown up enough, whatever enough to stop you from being surprised that I do what I do. I can not tell you how much energy I was putting into doing my job and working out how I'm still Hot Rod at the same time. I could not...I could not have gone over the Jabez memories with that still in my head. It took up an awful lot of my strength."

"And you think it did similar things to the rest of us?" Ultra Magnus said very, very quietly.

"Pretty sure. We'll know more tomorrow. I wish it was tonight, but Kain won't do anything like this without some ancient Drazi protection ceremonies."

"Do you think his rituals actually do anything?" Marissa asked.

"Yeah," Lancer replied. "They stink up the entire wing Pagan and Kain use for their quarters...but he won't do this without them and that's the way it is. You do not argue with a class one telepath, even if his religious ceremonies involve burning waxy animal ear-hair and incense that smells like week-old road-kill."

"So you're staying in my quarters tonight?" Rodimus teased her, "Or are you going back home to enjoy the ambiance?" Lancer hit him.

Magnus was not distracted. "How again is it that I am not supposed to kill that thing right now?"

"Try a cleansing breath Big Guy, your facial gears are grinding again," Rodimus said. "You won't kill it because we need to know exactly who, when, and why it's been meddling, because we don't have another means of not going extinct, and most of all, because I get dibs. OO...and there's the little matter of you following orders and all."

Magnus muttered a few choice words about Rodi and his orders.

"What else do you think it did?" Optimus asked.

"Oh...I dunno. I have so many suspicions...about fights I've had with people. Why we always let the Cons retreat no matter what. About letting Galvatron tear me apart...about how we all let the Slavers set up shop right under our noses...about why Megatron never killed Starscream...about you leaving Elita behind, Optimus. It's quite a long list actually."

"I have never wanted to kill anything quite so badly in all my life."

The entire room, even Kup, looked up at that one. Not that other people disagreed, but seeing how it had come from Optimus...

"It ends tomorrow partner," Rodimus promised. He sighed, and glanced at the chronometer on the main display board.

Elita noticed. "You should go. Don't worry. We'll all behave, won't we boys? We didn't get a chance to miss you...go see your daughters Rodi."

Kup stood up as Rodi and Lancer turned to leave. He faced them, and then looked down, shuffling his feet like a nervous child.

Lancer backed away from her mate, using assassin's skills to try to become invisible. If there was going to be a breakthrough she didn't want her presence to hinder it.

Kup glanced up again, tried, and gave a hopeless, shuddering sigh.

Rodimus didn't fare much better.

Finally they did manage to stare at each other.

"Rodimus..." Kup finally tried, just as Elita was getting ready to push one or the other of them. "I don't...I don't know anything about whether that circuit-twisting piece of slag did...anything to me that helped me hurt you. I just know I did, and I can't figure out why! Rodi...I'm sorry! I'm just so sorry!"

It was enough. Rodimus moved with that impossible silence and grabbed his mentor in a grinding hug.

When he finally let go, Rodimus grabbed Kup's chin, forced optic lock, and told him, "It wasn't you. I know it wasn't you. I don't have to wait...and Kup...I'm sorry I didn't realize it sooner."

"I'm not sure you're right about that," Kup confessed. He cast a nervous glance at Lancer, who was trying to remain unobtrusive in the background. "I...I really felt hate towards you Lancer," he said.

"I know," she answered.

"You never did anything to deserve it," Kup told her.

Lancer looked hard at him, "Sure I did. We lied to you from the start about what was going on, the Jabez, us. Who else would you blame?"

"I blamed Edana...even if Vector Sigma was influencing me how could I blame a little child? If it was in my head, I should have picked up on that!"

"You assume you were in a position to notice. I've been possessed Kup...this is different. What happened to me and Magnus was violent and brutal. No way to miss that, but if we are right Vector Sigma has left back-doors in the minds of every Transformer it ever activated. It seems to be good at slipping in and out unnoticed and taking natural reactions to extremes. It was good you were suspicious of me, just like it was normal for Rodimus to be overwhelmed when he became Prime. I was a stranger with influence over one of your commanders, and he wasn't acting right."

"You...are defending what I did?"

Lancer tilted her head to one side. "I don't think YOU did anything Kup." She stepped back up beside her mate and eyed Kup appraisingly. Then she smiled and stuck a hand out. "Hi! I'm Lancer. I don't believe we've met."

x  
x  
x  
Rodimus' quarters were unique.

The "public" front half was precisely what any Autobot or dignitary who might have reason to visit might expect. All the basics of Transformer life, with a few upgrades here or there in deference to his rank. Not many though. Just nicely made but impersonal furniture to accommodate whatever species might be paying a call, a larger workstation and a higher end recharge bed.

First Aid would have told you this last had nothing to do with rank, but the owner's tendency to short himself on recharge time. The better model got more done in a hurry.

Personal items displayed here or there were in keeping with what everyone knew about Rodimus' interests. Framed posters involving Earth's music industry mostly. Some photos of his friends, human and Autobot. A small scale model of the music hall named after him in Seattle, and a framed plaque from the opening which he hadn't been able to attend.

If you went through to the "private areas" things got a bit more cluttered and the photos got a bit more personal, but really it was just more of the same.

Then, if you knew where to look, and if you had the right physiology to pass the scanners, and if you also passed the scans for Conversion, you could get past the "private area" and get into the REALLY private area.

Autobot sized ceilings and furniture, an unmade king-sized human bed, a crib, and an equally unmade twin-sized bed in its own room, a sitting area with human couches and chairs, a small kitchen with a four-person dining area. A very large coffee pot. Photos of Lancer and the kids all over the walls, and toys everywhere. The place looked like scrambled eggs.

"Thanks Pagan," Lancer said, taking Alex gingerly from her scaly friend. They both winced. Edana at six was still capable of slicing the space-time continuum with her squeal. She let go of Pagan and blew past her mother at light speed, launching herself at her father who was kneeling on the floor, waiting.

Edana toppled Rodimus over and he laughed, howling melodramatically about his inglorious defeat.

Pagan gave Lancer a meaningful stare.

"Your hatchling ignores you Lancer," the Drazi stated.

"My hatchling lives with me and sees her father only a few times a year. I'd be more worried if she wasn't happy to see him."

"You have not seen her in a year," the Drazi said.

"I'm seeing her now," Lancer smiled. She couldn't be jealous. The whole first year of Edana's life she had felt sure father and daughter would never meet, and she saw Edana in person so much more than Rodi did. Of course she shared every moment with Rodimus mentally, but as much as that helped he still longed for the day he could see his children as much as he wanted.

Oblivious, the red-heads tumbled all over the floor. Somehow they ended up with Edana standing on one of Rodi's feet as he lay flat on his back with his legs straight up in the air. She stared down at him with a huge grin while he tried to upset her balance and stood on one foot herself to show she wasn't impressed.

Rodimus snickered, arched both arms over his head and put his palms down. Then he pushed up into a hand stand. Edana teetered a bit but didn't fall so he began walking on his hands around the room.

Lancer and Pagan didn't comment on the up-side down man with the squealing child bouncing on the soles of his feet.

"How's Kain doing?" Lancer asked.

Pagan smacked her hard lips together. "*TK* In such a hurry? The secrets the Jabez and this computer of yours keep can wait one more day for Kain to be ready. He will perform better and more safely if his own mind is settled. The rituals only take about 10 hours young one. We should not rush him. If he falters he must begin anew."

Lancer sighed. "It's not that I'm so much in a hurry Pagan. We are just worried Vector Sigma may try something."

"Its thoughts could not penetrate the silver room's walls," Pagan noted. "Kain even remarked on its imperviousness."

"OO! A compliment! It doesn't matter. We have privacy there, but the Autobots' thoughts were open to it the instant they stepped foot outside. It knows. Believe me."

Rodimus hand-walked behind them, bicycle kicking with his legs - Edana simply bent and straightened hers to keep up with him. If anything shook her balance, it was usually laughing too hard.

Pagan's fins flared and she gave the short, rapid machine-gun hiss that passed for Drazi laughter.

"The hatchling's coordination is improving."

"At least to the point I'll never have to pay to see the circus," Lancer agreed.

"You fear the machine will attempt to harm someone tonight?"

Lancer shrugged. "Ten hours is a long time if you are desperate. The rest of the command staff is on alert, but we can't monitor the whole planet."

By this point, Rodimus was on his second tour of the room, and Edana was upside down as well, hand-standing on his handstand. Lancer saw her daughter's grin flare and knew there was trouble brewing. She made sure to back Pagan, Alex, and herself out of the way.

Edana went up on one hand...and tickled the bottom of Rodi's foot with the other.

"Cheater!" he cried, tumbling smoothly down. Edana somersaulted away from him as he toppled and came up running. Lancer and Pagan merely flattened themselves to the wall at intervals when the dual red-streak went by them periodically.

"*TK* If you are concerned, I will go and lend assistance to my sibling. I will grind the bones and herbs for him."

"Than...Rodimus! You stay off the table! If you break it again I swear I will kill you both! It is a lot of trouble for Pagan to help sneak that stuff in!"

"It is nothing," Pagan said.

"Quiet you!" Lancer whispered. "I'm trying to get him to behave! She can run all over the furniture without smashing it! He's too heavy!"

"Too late!" Rodimus cried as he sailed past them and over the couch after his eldest. "I heard her!"

"Me too!" Edana said, diving under the table in question.

This was a mistake. Her father used the chairs to trap her. He pulled her out, held her upside down, and went to work on the soles of her feet.

"This hatchling can reach octaves I thought only Claudia could manage," Pagan complained. She dropped her cranial fins down over her ear slots. Lancer tried not to snicker. The Drazi always looked ridiculous with her fins flattened to her head like cling-wrap.

"I suggest you retreat while you can. It only goes down-hill once the tickling starts," Lancer told her friend. "Thanks for everything Pagan!"

The Drazi smiled, bowed slightly, and vanished.

Lancer sat down on the couch to watch the whirlwind and looked down with fond worry at her youngest.

"Geez Alex. You'll sleep through anything won't you?"  
x  
x  
x  
Optimus and Elita drove for the command center to keep an eye on things. She had insisted that Rodimus and Lancer go home to spend time with the girls. For once, such arrangements didn't cause any shuffling because they had been expecting to do without him for a while anyway. The meeting had just caused them to be a bit late, but those on duty were used to just picking up the slack when something or another held their commanders up.

Elita trailed slightly behind her mate. They weren't in a shielded area, so he wasn't talking to her, even on a private channel, but his revved up engines told Elita everything she needed to know.

Optimus wasn't nearly as well known for his temper as his partner, which made the few times he truly lost it all the more dangerous for the cause of it.

Not that Elita wasn't furious herself, but the millions of years in isolation had been their own kind of fury and she had learned to set it aside to keep it out of her way. She didn't deny it or repress it...she just had to learn to work around it. Otherwise her rage at being abandoned would have destroyed her small clan of femmes long ago.

Rodimus had hinted Vector Sigma might have had a hand in that abandonment.

Might.

Still.

Elita thought back on 4 million years of daily struggle, border-line starvation, claustrophobia, and crippling loneliness. She reflected on the femmes she'd lost to hunger, to madness, and of course to Decepticons. Her own engines wasted some power for a moment or two.

Optimus roared into the command center and drew stares from those on duty. Blaster, Outback, and Blurr. Even Blurr froze a moment.

Op transformed and headed for the glass enclosed head-office without greeting any of them. Elita transformed as well, but she smiled and shrugged at those watching. She found a convenient excuse for her mate's mood and the problem of Rodi's non-leave.

"We couldn't get Rodimus to go on vacation after all," she told Blaster. That was enough. They gaped at her, appalled. All the weeks of snickering and planning gone to waste. She knew Blaster would have this news distributed through the grape vine in no time. Gossip was one of the few things Elita knew that traveled faster than the speed of light.

With that, the cobalt femme followed her seething mate into the privacy of the office.

As soon as she shut the door, Optimus exploded.

"When did I become so damned clueless about my own life Elita?"

Not exactly what she expected him to say, but she rolled with it. "You aren't clueless Orion. If what Rodimus says is true then we are all brain-washed to some degree...and that probably makes you the worst case."

She often called him his old name affectionately. This time he took it badly.

"Orion! I'm in doubt of everything I've done since I was Orion! Is anything I ever did or said my own? Or have I just been a puppet from the outset?"

"I think most of what you did is yours. Vector Sigma will meddle when it wants to, but I think it is lazy and you work too hard," Elita said wryly.

Optimus had been expecting some kind of rational analysis of his life's work...which he would have doubted and dismissed, but this was his wonderful mate talking, and she cut to the heart of it in a way he couldn't really doubt.

He chuckled, amazed that he could do so at this point. He agreed.

"Still...it put pressure on us at critical moments. I can think of many points in the past, but right now it is trying to break up the council! I've let it drive a wedge between Rodimus and me. Rodimus is right! It's like I can't keep the fact he's grown up in my head! Elita...I don't know that I ever told you. When the Jabez had him, I felt a lot of what he went through because of the Matrix link. It was like he was trying to warn me. Sometimes when I shut down I would see what they were doing through his optics, and yet today.... Today I saw some of those same things written down on chart paper and was surprised! I went through it with him to a degree and somehow, I forgot. I forgot he was tortured. I forgot he went insane. I forgot what he does to stop them day after day and then tried to kill him for it. Not that I wanted him to assassinate Springer and Arcee, but I was just so shocked he could even think that way when I know full well he HAS to!"

"Optimus...you never forgot he was tortured!" Elita protested.

"Oh, if you had asked me I could have stated the fact of it, but it didn't impact my response to him did it? The facts did nothing to change the way I thought about him...or maybe I should say the way I felt about him. I was...I am...furious with him."

Elita sighed.

Optimus' hands shook with too many emotions to name. "How is it possible to love and trust a friend so much and still hold him in such contempt Elita? Lately I'm suspicious of everything he does. No wonder he avoids me and lies to everyone around him. Really. It's a miracle we've held out as long as we have."

That one Elita had an answer for. "It isn't a miracle. Underneath all the tampering, you boys are truly good partners and you should give yourselves credit for maintaining any semblance of friendship in spite of Vector Sigma. Your partnership was formed on Earth, away from its interference, and it held up Optimus! It held up. Imagine what it will be like if we get rid of Vector Sigma's influence! Maybe...maybe you two can finally really forgive each other?"

Optimus groaned. "How can he forgive me for turning my back on him like that?"

"He forgave Kup," Elita pointed out, sitting on the desk next to him.

"That's true. ... What about you? Can you forgive me?" Optimus asked. He didn't need to say what for.

"My Orion..." Elita smiled. She took his hand. "I forgave you a long time ago. I had to. Long before you found us again, I made that choice because it was that or go mad down in the tunnels. Even if it turns out to have been entirely your own stupid mistake, I know you did the best you could. Now, if it turns out Vector Sigma pushed you into leaving us, I may find IT harder to forgive." There was venom in her voice. Elita hadn't survived down in the tunnels for four million years by being sweet.

"We can't kill it," Optimus said.

"I know. I won't, but I may make it wish that I would," Elita said in a sugary voice.

Optimus flinched. Very few people ever saw this side of his mate. She was so good at projecting calm all around her, but he'd seen her do things in battle that would have taught Lancer a thing or two.

"I keep thinking about everyone else," Optimus said, hoping to deflect her a bit. "Magnus is going to be hard to contain until this is over."

Elita snorted. "Jazz is going to be hard to contain! Magnus is going to need a cell. This thing with Kup still has him reeling, but once he thinks it over we are going to have problems. Worse, I keep wondering...who's idea was it for him to go AWOL back in the day...?"

"What I don't understand is why it is working on us like that? We are its only protection from the Jabez!" Optimus growled. "Now it is just a matter of which one of us gets to it first!"

"Maybe that was the problem to begin with. Rodimus has been pretty clear that he's looking for ways to not need it anymore, and extremely clear about what happens if he succeeds," Elita observed dryly. "I'm sure it figures the Jabez might get it, but Rodimus or Magnus will for sure."

"If we kill it our species will eventually go extinct. Do you think we should stand guard over it tonight? If Magnus has the same notion you did about how his old unit died I'm not sure anything will stop him."

Elita frowned in concern. "I hope I'm wrong about that...or maybe not."

Optimus shook his head again, "It hardly matters. Right or wrong if the notion even occurs to Ultra Magnus, well, he may not wait to find out."

Elita nodded, agreeing. They both paused for a moment.

"Maybe we should move it," she said.

"Maybe another location until things settle down," Optimus said at the same time.

They looked at each other.

"What...what were you thinking just now?" Optimus asked his mate.

"That you and I should go down and hide Vector Sigma from the others," Elita said grimly.

"I was just thinking the same thing," Optimus said. His voice was very, very flat and calm.

"Right...so that's how it works," Elita said. Her fingers were held stiff at her side. Someone else might have missed that, but Optimus had seen Rodimus use the same hand gesture to punch through Quintisson skulls.

"Shall we go?" Optimus said, in that same, quiet voice.

"Oh...I think we should," Elita said with a smile that could have peeled paint.

They practically ran from the office, transformed, and skidded out.

Blaster, Blurr, and Outback stared at each other. Watching the exchange in the office had proven confusing for the three of them, but this left them dumbfounded. Neither leader had so much as said goodbye.

"Um," Outback said intelligently.

"Great just great who's in charge now Optimus never just leaves why would he do that it makes no sense do you get it Blaster?" Blurr asked.

"No clue Dude. I guess I'd better get in touch with the Rodster. Serves 'im right for not taking that vacation!" Blaster said.

x  
x  
x

The communicator beeped.

Rodimus made a face and tried to pretend he hadn't heard it. He smiled at Alex and toyed with her toes. When Edana was this little, toe-toying had never failed to elicit a giggle or two. Alex smiled a little in her sleep, but didn't wake up.

Lancer was busy trying to get their completely exhausted, but completely wound up older daughter to settle in for the night with a patience few would have given the assassin credit for. Rodimus knew that was because Lancer didn't blame Edana for being over-excited. She blamed him and would be explaining that at length later.

The bedtime story wasn't as interesting as bouncing on the bed, but Lancer kept reading until listening seemed like a good idea to their eldest. Once Edana sat down it was all over. Her legs folded Indian-style first and then the rest of her sank forward onto the bed.

Now Lancer was carefully stripping the day's clothes away and replacing them with pajamas as carefully as she by-passed Jabez security systems. No chance this kid was waking up again.

The communicator beeped, and Lancer arched an eyebrow at her mate.

He sighed, put the baby down in her crib, and tore himself away from them to go into the "livingroom" so he could talk without disturbing his daughters.

It was a good thing Lancer could read Rodi's mind, because he didn't bother to tell her what was up when he rocketed out of the room.

x  
x  
x

"Magnus!" Rodimus screamed over the com-lines. "Where are you?"

"AAHH! RODIMUS! WHAT THE HELL?!" Magnus roared, trying to hide being startled under anger. "I'm at home of course with my cranky pregnant mate!"

"Get your ass to The Tunnel! I'm sending Jazz to the command center!"

"What is going on?" Magnus demanded.

"Op and Elita just went AWOL!" Rodimus told him.

"Oh. .... I'll be right there."  
x  
x  
x

Down in the center of Cybertron, Vector Sigma was feeling something it had rarely felt. Panic.

It had gotten used to the idea that Rodimus' and Magnus' minds were shut to it. Rodi's mind link and Magnus' possession had closed the back-doors to their minds. That it couldn't control them anymore annoyed it, but it knew it could still influence those around them.

More than anything, it wanted revenge on Rodimus for enslaving it. Kup had almost done the trick, but once he failed then he was no further use to Vector Sigma. Kup was abandoned like a broken tool. No worries though, there were others.

Optimus Prime was easy enough to influence as well. Of all the Transformers in Cybertron's history, Optimus had the most "experience" with Vector Sigma's direct control.

Turning Op's very real misgivings about Rodimus' tactics into full-blown violence had been child's play.

And yet...the council had intervened. Lancer, damn her, had intervened as well. But mostly...mostly Optimus had stopped himself. Just one more punch. One more hit to Rodimus' ruined, unresisting face and Rodimus' brain circuitry would have been spread all over the council room floor.

Vector Sigma told itself that it had relaxed control at just the wrong moment. It had felt such triumph that it forgot to concentrate on its pawn for that final blow. Optimus had turned and run, scattering Sigma's plans back to the wind. If it hadn't lapsed concentration surely Rodimus would be dead by now.

Or would he?

Optimus Prime. Settled, reliable, predictable Optimus Prime was gunning his engines towards the tunnels in a murderous rage. He had shrugged off Sigma tonight with contemptuous ease. How had he done that? He had no foreign mind link. He had no mind-damaging possession like Magnus and Megatron. How had a mere Autobot slipped his bonds?

Elita One was the same. Not even a Matrix bearer, but she was easily shutting Sigma out.

In Vector Sigma's mind this should have been impossible. Surely, none of its pawns, its own creations, could hope to match its mental power. They were mere tools...weren't they?

The tools were coming for it...and they were coming fast. They were nearly to the tunnel.

Vector Sigma couldn't sense Rodimus directly, but it could read Jazz, and see the young Prime's passage through the optics of other Autobots and Paradronians.

The young Prime was faster than his partner but Optimus and Elita had a good head-start. For once Vector Sigma was cheering Rodimus on. It decided to help cut Optimus Prime's lead time.

Continued in Part D


	4. Chapter 4

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part D

Continued from Part C

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Optimus roared. He blew his horn nearly non-stop, and yet Transformers of all shapes and sizes kept deciding to cross the street right in front of him and Elita. Then they would stop to TALK to each other right in the road. It was as if they didn't see or hear him.

It didn't take much thought to work out they probably couldn't.

He and Elita were nearly to the tunnel entrance, but they were forced to transform and work their way slowly through the crowd. At a few points Optimus needed to just pick those interfering up and set them aside.

None of this did anything to improve his mood. The people he moved stared blankly, as if drugged, and it made Optimus feel...violated.

Over his com-line his partner was signaling him madly.

"OPTIMUS! You can wait a few more hours!" Rodimus cried.

"Don't interfere Rodi!" Optimus growled. "It tried to influence me. It tried to influence Elita! It is toying with our people!"

More Transformers were converging on the area. They were lining up, forming a living wall between the Prime couple and the tunnel access. Optimus roared, venting frustration and rage.

Hearing this over the com-line did bad things to Rodimus. He didn't have to think further than Lancer's possession to know how Optimus felt, multiplied by the violation of Op's mate, and now, obviously the people under his care.

Rodimus didn't blame Optimus at all. He quite shared the same reaction. He just wanted it delayed for a bit longer.

Why, oh why did the Maelstrom's telepath need to be such a ritualistic, anal sort of guy? Rodimus knew Kain would call the whole thing off and start over if so much as a dust mite contaminated his purification supplies. The young Prime briefly wondered how hair scraped out of the inner ear of an animal found only in the swamps on Pagan's home-world could be considered to purify anything.

Unlike his partner, Rodimus was finding the streets totally clear, with lots of helpful by-standers pointing the way unasked. Like he needed directions anyway. Vector Sigma might have been better off not reminding Rodimus of why he hated it so much.

Rodimus could only try to control his own rage, passing blank-faced, pointing Autobots, and hearing his partner cursing over the com-lines. He hoped Kain's waxy ear-hair incense burned beautifully...and fast.

Ultra Magnus pulled in behind Rodi's back bumper from a side-street and they plowed forward through the remarkably clear streets of Iacon.

Up ahead of them they saw the crowd parting ways, revealing Optimus and Elita trying to force their way through one staring Cybertronian after another.

Rodimus continued to yell frantically to his partner and Vector Sigma released its control over some of the crowd. They began milling around in confusion, which was no surprise to Vector Sigma...it didn't care what they thought.

It should have.

A lot of the crowd was Paradronian, but there were a few enlisted Autobots, and even the Paradronians were coming to truly respect Optimus and his leadership. Those actually guarding the tunnel were still under control, but the rest of the crowd was suddenly aware that their leader was shouting orders to an unresponsive group of citizens.

Some of them started pulling their friends out of the way.

"What are you doing?"  
"Let him through!"  
"Hey! That's OPTIMUS! You don't want to get in trouble do you?"

Realizing its mistake, Vector Sigma tried to re-establish control. It worked, but only marginally. Some of the crowd fell right back under, but some...some just ignored the call. Not listening to Optimus Prime was just too...out of character for them. They weren't actively resisting. They just did what they wanted to do.

Controlling a mass crowd was a strain for Vector Sigma, even when they were responding as one, unaware of their surroundings, but to control so many who were actually having contrary notions was too much. It let those who resisted go because it had no choice, and they thinned the crowd even further by arguing with those that were still under. Some helped Optimus pull others out of the way.

Even as Rodimus and Magnus came into view, Optimus and Elita carved their way into the tunnel access. The crowd suddenly cleared out, giving Magnus and Rodimus all the room in the world.

"Why are we trying to stop Optimus?" Magnus asked. His nonchalant tone didn't fool Rodi for a minute.

"Because if we don't figure out exactly what it had influence on over the years we'll all go nuts!" Rodimus snapped. He made sure to broadcast that to his partner and Elita.

The noise he got back from Optimus over the com-line reminded Rodi violently of the fight they'd had the first time the Quints had revived, or rather half-revived, the elder Prime. An incoherent, visceral bellow of fury. Maybe it was already too late. Optimus sounded pretty nuts right now.

Once in the tunnels Optimus and Elita transformed and took off again, but Rodimus and Magnus had mostly closed the gap, and the tunnel banked sharply left and down. It was enough to slow Optimus down to where Rodimus could catch up.

He floored the accelerator, transformed with all of that momentum behind him, and launched himself straight for the roof of Optimus' trailer. He cleared the low ceiling by mere inches, but managed to land without crunching himself or his friend. He squirmed forward, caught the front end of the trailer (Optimus showed no sign of slowing down) and with a sigh of resignation lifted one of his feet to drag along the ceiling.

Sparks flew, and the sound did bad things to everyone's audio receptors.

Optimus, enraged though he was, noticed the drag, and noticed the unvoiced pain in Rodi's fingers on the roof of his trailer. He hit the brakes, leaving long smoking skids.

"You are an insufferable pain in the diodes Rodimus! Why are you interfering?"

"Because you are muscling in on my act as the reckless one around here!"  
Rodimus said. "I'm going to sue you for copy-right infringement!"

His cheerful voice did a lot to cut into Optimus' anger.

"Get off my roof," Optimus said.

Rodimus pulled himself forward, put his hands on the top of Op's cab, and somersaulted smoothly to stand in front of his partner...on one foot.

Elita, angry as her mate, but ever practical, transformed. "Oh...you moron! Let me see that!" she scolded.

"It's fine. Just smarts a bit," Rodimus told her, putting his foot down. "Messed up my paint job though."

"I should mess up way more than your paint job," Optimus growled.

Rodimus' optics lost that self-satisfied little twinkle. "Am I going to have to fight you again Optimus?" he asked quietly.

That did it. Optimus transformed.

"No. I won't let it bring us to that again," Optimus said sadly.

"What set you guys off?" Rodimus wanted to know.

"It was trying to influence us," Elita told him.

"To do what?" Magnus asked.

"To go down and move it...so it would be safe from any of you going ballistic and killing it tonight. It probably thought that once we moved it for its own protection tonight, that it could keep convincing us to protect it indefinitely."

Rodimus chuckled. "Obviously that backfired a bit. Lancer has sworn to me for years that we are out-evolving its control. I guess it didn't realize."

"Yes, but it still holds sway on many people," Elita said grimly.

"Well, I bet it is sorry it didn't tell one of them to move it instead of you two," Magnus grinned.

The four of them looked at each other.

This was the only open access to Vector Sigma. Rodimus had insisted all the others be collapsed and hidden...but Vector Sigma knew where they were. If enough people working together under its direction started digging....

The four of them transformed as if THEY were controlled by one mind and started down the tunnel again as fast as they could go. They'd only gone about two-hundred yards when an enormous clawed hand punched down from the surface in front of them. It retracted - leaving a pit that extended down several levels in front of them. Above them was a gaping hole to the sky.

A multitude of voices shouting triumph as one voice came down from the surface. To those in the tunnels who were seeing star-light from below it was as if the stars were screaming. Then the enormous shape of an angry Guardian eclipsed the heavens and punched down at them again, widening the gap before them.

Omega Supreme.

He actually didn't punch that deep...just a level or so, but the floor he pushed down with such force crushed the floor under that, and then the floor under that.

It was a while before the booming and echoing of destruction stopped below them. Above them, a multitude of glowing optics made a ring around the hole, and they saw Omega's big hand drawing back.

"Oh...not good," Rodimus said to no one in particular.

"What?" Optimus shouted over the noise. "No sneaky assassin's tricks?"

"Only if I want to kill someone!" Rodimus said. "Which I don't!"

"But I will if I have to" went unspoken, but they all heard it anyway.

This time Omega Supreme's hand came for them instead of before them.

"Constructicons enemies!" Omega intoned.

x  
x  
x

Jazz fumed.

Blaster, Outback, and Blurr were mystified.

First Optimus and Elita come in, acting angry, leave, acting angrier and send in Jazz...angry.

None of them could ever recall Jazz being so angry.

Unlike Prime and Elita however, instead of politely retreating to the command station and keeping his anger to himself, Jazz stayed down in the control room with them. Sharing with friends wasn't always such a good thing after all.

"I could play some cool new tunes I picked up on..." Blaster tried. Music was always a sure bet with Jazz.

"Shove it, Man! I ain't in the mood!"

"Jazz? What's wrong? First Optimus...now you...? Don't tell me this is all about Rodimus declining a vacation!" Outback asked seriously.

Jazz opted for glaring.

Outback and Blaster exchanged looks and Blurr seemed afraid to move.

The Specialist didn't miss the glances they kept throwing him, especially Blaster, but he wasn't able to do anything about it. Blaster he knew, would be especially hurt since they had been fellow addicts in Earth's music and culture since it was introduced to them. They in turn had won over many of the others one way or another, not the least of which had been the newly activated Hot Rod who seemed to step foot on Earthen soil and into love of that music in the same instant. Others confessed it had to grow on them, like rust spots.

It didn't matter. Jazz and Blaster made it their personal mission to be one step ahead of everyone else, and their teamwork had produced an unbroken record of "we heard it first"...although Hot Rod and Tracks had kept them on their toes.

The night-long, secretly arranged "jam sessions" which had made them undisputed champions of "what's hot and what's not" had been all but eradicated in the last five years or so. Jazz wondered if Blaster wanted an explanation for that too.

Jazz's hand clenched the chair he was slouching in. For some reason, of all the meeting's revelations, Jazz had focused on the list on the wall. He had hardly heard the video. The bright marker colors on the wall had caught his attention and held it. He read it. He read it again. Shellshock came in and sat down next to Malice. Jazz read the list again.

For the first time in years, Jazz had thought about Bumblebee, not even Goldbug. Bumblebee. Everyone's little brother. Hero-worshiping, happy, over-eager little Bumblebee. What a tight little group they had been. Just a handful of Autobots living in the Ark - calling them an army was a joke. More like a boy-scout troop. Spike had fit right in - certainly there was room for him and Sparkplug to find an emotional space within this tiny, lonely band.

And they had been lonely. For all they knew at first they were the last of their kind and Cybertron was a dead ball of corpses drifting like scrap somewhere in the icy vacuum.

But no one had made friends quite like Spike and Bumblebee. Jazz remembered how he and the others had commented on that friendship so often. Optimus had always encouraged it, saying that it was wonderful that two beings so different in construction could be so alike in spirit. The rest of the team had just found the two of them fun to be around, Jazz included.

And here was Spike, thin, withered, and bitter, sitting in the same room with a man he didn't even know had once been his friend.

Jazz read the list.

He watched Spike. He watched Shellshock. He knew why Spike was so full of hate. He wondered why Shellshock decided not to tell Spike who he was. Why? Why did Shellshock hate the Autobots...or at least, why was he spurning Spike?

Jazz read the list. He watched Shellshock and mourned.

Then the twins on the tape had revealed that Vector Sigma could influence its "children" directly. That some of the things they felt and believed were actually implanted ideas to control them.

Jazz saw Shellshock jerk as though pricked. Nothing changed in the man's demeanor. It was just a little twitch.

Jazz read the list. He read about the young people Rodimus and Goldbug had seen Converted.

He thought about Bumblebee. Bumblebee had revered Optimus. He revered Optimus so much that when everyone else questioned both Prime and the Matrix for choosing a twenty-year old goof-ball to succeed Optimus, Bumblebee had defended Rodimus from the start. Had it really been faith in Rodi? Jazz didn't think so. It had been unflinching assurance that neither Optimus nor the Matrix would EVER steer them wrong.

Obviously not the case with slave runners infesting Cybertron like so many energon ticks.

Disillusionment. What a bitch.

Jazz was suddenly very clear on why Shellshock had no plans to come home.

What if the blindness wasn't Optimus' fault though? What if Vector Sigma had put the blinders on? What if the commanders weren't ALLOWED to notice what was going on? What if the complacency that had led to the list on the wall had been forced into the minds of the leaders and anyone else who might have discovered the slave trade?

The video had gone on to show Rodimus trying to work up that horrible list, essentially putting himself back into the torture chamber. There was a more subtle message there. Definitely not Peter Pan. The man on the screen looked so tired. So old and frightened. There was nothing of innocence in his eyes. It was horrible to see the alternate Hot Rod looking on. The boy was furious. His hands clenched and unclenched with that desperate need to do something. Hot Rod always wanted to do something. He didn't really get it.

The need to do something was a kind of innocence in and of itself. Rodimus understood. Hot Rod didn't.

Sometimes there was nothing you could do.

Sometimes you just had to lay there and take it.

Jazz thought about Vector Sigma. He thought about Bumblebee. He read the list...and he was siding with Hot Rod. He wanted to do something. Something painful. Something off the list, to Vector Sigma, right now.

It took every ounce of self control to just sit here.

Why couldn't he follow the stellar example of his leaders and go get a piece of that glowing disco ball while supplies lasted?

Because he had to sit here and baby-sit the command center.

Blaster wondered what could possibly cause Jazz to so unmusically grind the tips of his fingers into the metal of his chair.

The three Autobots on duty would usually talk to each other while keeping an eye on things during their shifts. Not this time. They tip-toed around when they needed to move and used hand gestures and signals to communicate as much as possible. The few times they needed to answer the com-lines or speak to each other didn't move Jazz in the slightest, but they didn't want to talk just in case.

He was mostly oblivious to them anyway.

Which was why, when all three suddenly stood silently and turned on him, he almost didn't notice in time.

x  
x  
x

Springer and Arcee were tooling around the streets of Iacon when they felt the need to turn. The meeting had disturbed them both, and they both needed to blow off some steam, but it was also a rare moment for them to be off duty together. Even better, they weren't on Earth, so even if Silverbolt (who was covering Metroplex) ran into trouble they were off the hook.

As upset as they were, as worried and angry as they were, they decided to make the most of the moment. Racing around Iacon together seemed a perfect way to clear their heads and enjoy each other's company.

The decision to head for the tunnels to Vector Sigma never got discussed. They were just going this way and that anyway. Turning that direction...well...it seemed like a good idea at the moment.

The traffic increased, which usually would have made them head for less crowded areas, but they stayed on course. Apparently going this way seemed like a good idea to lots of robots tonight.

x  
x  
x

Lancer paced, trying to keep her emotions under control...not easy when her mate was reacting to Optimus and Elita's flight, Vector Sigma's obvious invasion of a lot of minds, and now the attack on her mate and his friends.

Her feet were silent, but Edana tossed in her bed as if hearing noises in her sleep. Lancer didn't want to disturb Pagan because she felt guilty about always yelling for help and also because she was afraid she might mess up Kain's ritual at a critical moment.

Obviously more was riding on his incense and ritual blood bath (only three drops of blood but still, literally, a blood bath) than they had previously realized.

Lancer was just making up her mind to move her children to the Maelstrom when the first hollow thud hit the door to Rodi's quarters. Rocket fire. These quarters were under attack! The mutant's eyes glowed and she fanged.

Her reluctance to contact Pagan vanished in a flash.

Seconds later, a worried looking Drazi retrieved her kids and asked, "Do you require more assistance?"

"Not yet, but keep the channels open. Vector Sigma just pissed me off. I intend to make it regret that."

There was another hollow boom at her door.

"It must be going after anyone who was at the meeting," she growled. Then her eyes widened.

"Oh shit! Marissa! And Spike!"

x  
x  
x

Marissa heard the dull thud of a missile launched from close range at the door to Magnus' quarters.

She should have been frightened.

Instead she was just pissed.

Seven and a half months pregnant with Magnus' twin sons and she was the size of a house. Uncomfortable and hormonal to say the least, her response to being attacked at home was nothing like rational.

A rational person would have been afraid of huge mind-controlled robots hurting her or her unborn children.

Marissa was indignant that these uppity Transformers would DARE.

She went looking for the biggest gun in the house and headed for the entrance.

Lancer and Pagan showed up just as she was opening the door. They grabbed Marissa and blinked out just as Grapple's hand rockets soared into her livingroom. They arrived on the bridge of the Maelstrom with her spitting like an enraged feline.

"My furniture!" she shrieked, squeezing off a blast. Luckily for her and the ship, Malice was regaining her old reflexes and had plenty of experience with surprise blasts from Lancer. The bolt didn't do any damage.

Lancer grinned. "Take care of her will ya?"

"Hey! Where are you going?" Marissa shrieked.

"To save our boys!" Lancer told her.

"I'm going too!" Marissa insisted irrationally.

Lancer thought about laughing at that very notion, but stopped herself. She didn't like to be coddled when pregnant either. She tried a different tactic.

"I need you here to look out for Spike. He's not going to be happy when we dump him here," Lancer said.

Marissa looked dubious.

"You're the only one here he really knows, except for Shellshock," Lancer said.

"We must hurry," Pagan said. Robert showed her the location of Spike's quarters on the main screen. Pagan memorized, then jumped with Lancer.

x  
x  
x

Spike was standing in his quarters. He always carried a side-arm, but he hadn't drawn it, even though the doors to his home were starting, finally, to cave in. They had actually stood a lot longer than he thought they should. Watching them bend slowly inward, taking one blast after another from the mob outside, made him finally realize how many security upgrades his home had been given behind his back.

When had that happened?

While he and Carly were away on diplomatic missions and Daniel was at school. Duh.

Hadn't they remarked more than once that it seemed like things had been moved when they got home? Never enough to really worry about though. Never enough to report a break in. Nothing ever turned up missing, but the old place sure had gotten quieter over the years. Like the walls were thicker.

Much thicker apparently.

Rodimus.

Underhanded bastard.

Why in the hell hadn't he been up-front about anything?

Maybe the truth wouldn't have saved Daniel's life. Not without putting the boy in a box. Fat chance with a kid who's ultimate dream was to be one of the elite fighter pilots who guarded Earth's governments and historic sites.

It sure would have made things easier to understand though.

Spike stood in front of his door, watching it bow towards him a millimeter at a time, brooding over things.

When Rodi's mate and her over-grown reptilian friend suddenly appeared in his livingroom, he was too distracted to resist.

Lancer didn't take any chances anyway. She wrapped both arms and her tail firmly around him and held on tight while Pagan 'ported them both to the Maelstrom.

x  
x  
x

Kup felt an idea come into his head.

The idea involved moving to the surface, so he knew instantly it wasn't his own.

It wanted him to go to the Sigma access tunnel. Like that was going to happen.

The next thought was more like a question.

"Where are you?"

Kup wasn't a fool. If Vector Sigma couldn't use him, then he guessed it would try to kill him. To avoid it, he would have to keep his location from it.

Easy enough. Currently he was trying to get himself lost down in the tunnels and succeeding nicely. He wanted to be alone, to work out how much of his fight with Lancer and Rodimus he could blame on himself, on them, and on Vector Sigma. He didn't want the answers handed to him after Kain went through Vector Sigma. It felt like cheating.

Maybe Rodi and Lancer could forgive him, but he felt he had to earn it to forgive himself.

Not wanting to be disturbed before he was finished, he had headed for the labyrinth outside of Iacon. Flourishing though the city was, these old tunnels were still mostly uninhabitable. Refurbishing them was slow and dangerous work, and now Kup knew that many of their resources had been given to other priorities. Now he was lost, which was just what he wanted.

He felt Vector Sigma probe him again, and spat curses into the stale air. The presence withdrew. How could he have missed such an intrusion before? He didn't know, but it wasn't going to find him from his own thoughts, that was for sure.

Kup didn't even want to think about how he got down to where he was. The super computer might glean clues from his memories that even Kup wouldn't recognize. So he stubbornly began what he set out to do. He thought about Hot Rod, he thought about Galvatron ripping Hot Rod's circuits out because Kup hadn't taken Rodi's call for help seriously. He thought about guilt, and Lancer, and the list of horrors on the wall. He thought about Vector Sigma and how it might have played into that mix.

He thought really hard that he hoped Rodimus found some healing in Vector Sigma's demise. Kup was no telepath, but he made a sincere attempt to broadcast that last part very clearly.

x  
x  
x

Perceptor saw the mob coming for his lab with plenty of warning. He was concerned about those under sway, but not too much for himself or his work in spite of their numbers.

The incident with Astrotrain that destroyed his old lab and nearly killed him had taught Perceptor well.

Be prepared.

Tell no one.

Don't ask permission.

Go for overkill.

He pushed a button. The walls around his lab moved and contracted around it until it became a smooth armored ball that retracted slowly down into another armored chamber underneath. This closed around the lab and locked blast-proof doors over the top.

Perceptor had made his own personal cyclone shelter. It had power and supplies to hold out for a month and a force-field around it to keep anyone from even getting to test the armor. Not even the Primes knew about all of this, but in a war where your enemies could pluck thoughts from your head, a few well kept secrets were healthy.

Outside the mob pounded fists, missiles, and lasers futilely on his force-field.

x  
x  
x

First Aid was in heaven.

Alone in med-lab, he was playing with his new toy.

The "hand-book" the other dimension's Ratchet had prepared for him was really a Matrix style crystal with a projection device. When First Aid first tried it, he didn't even know how to turn it on.

After several minutes of looking for an obvious switch or someplace to begin, he began muttering to himself in frustration.

"What do I have to do to get this thing to work?" he asked the empty air.

"You ask questions of course!" came the answer.

First Aid had yelped in surprise and nearly fallen out of his seat.

"Hey! Don't drop me!"

"Ratchet!" First Aid cried, setting the device down on the table. "It's really you!"

"Well, no. Not really me, but I suppose I will do in a pinch," the projection told him.

"You...you can hear me!" First Aid said. "You can talk to me!"

The little hologram, which stood about a yard high on his desk, folded its arms and looked at him reproachfully. It mimicked Ratchet's form and body language perfectly, if a bit transparently.

"What good would I be if I couldn't see and hear you?" it asked.

"I was happy with just a sort of reference book," First Aid explained. "I didn't expect you to respond...like you."

"Well, this WAS supposed to be a sort of reference book, but I...I mean Ratchet tried to put as much of himself into the crystal as he could. He was afraid he'd miss something otherwise. I guess it worked a little too well...I'm fairly certain I'm sentient."

"By the Matrix..." First Aid said.

"Or very nearly," Ratchet responded with a smile.

Continued in Part E


	5. Chapter 5

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part E

Continued from Part D

They got to talking. To his chagrin, First Aid found he wasn't concentrating on finding out things he needed to know, but pouring his heart out to Ratchet instead. Ratchet. It was impossible for him to think of this little projected being any other way.

"This has been really hard on you hasn't it?" Ratchet asked him compassionately. "I thought it must be. This is a huge burden for someone with full medical training, let alone without it!"

First Aid nodded. "The medical part I'm getting under control. I had all the reference files I could hope for, but I didn't always have time to look stuff up. I've...I've lost patients because of it. The worst part though...isn't the job. It's the isolation. What I know is classified and the other Protectobots don't have clearance. Defensor will never be whole again Ratchet, and I can't even tell my brothers why. Hotspot demands answers from me and gets furious when I won't talk. Groove...Groove won't even speak to me any more. I miss them, and I need their support, but I can't ask for it any more."

"They don't understand you have privileged information?" Ratchet asked.

"They don't know. They can't know. As far as they are concerned I have quit the team for reasons of my own. Hotspot is so persistent. He thinks it was faulty leadership on his part that at least he didn't see it coming and can't figure out why I left. All he wants is an explanation and he is furious that I won't give him one. Streetwise looks at me like I'm some kind of unsavory specimen. Groove is just hurt and if Blades ever gets me by myself I think I'll end up in pieces. They are fighting among each other playing the blame game and it is hurting their effectiveness." First Aid sighed and Ratchet's hologram made a futile attempt to pat his hand.

"Who else have you told about this depression, First Aid? Who do you talk to?" Ratchet asked.

"No one. The council can't help me. They wouldn't have sacrificed Defensor if there was anyone else, and I don't want them to try. I was part of a team Ratchet. I was part of a group that once in a while shared my very thoughts. When we were merged, we understood each other. It was so...I don't know...wonderful to have people who knew all your secrets and didn't even need to ask to understand you. I guess that's why they are so hurt. They thought they knew me. They did know me, but now they think I somehow lied to them about who I was. Nothing the council can say or do will ever replace that for me, and I don't want them to try."

Ratchet nodded in understanding and concern. "Every medic needs someone to sound off on. Wheeljack was my shoulder when I needed one. Is he not available? I'm sure he would..." Ratchet stopped. First Aid was already shaking his head.

"He died during the same battle you..I mean your twin did," First Aid explained sadly. "I really am the last of our medical team. Perceptor helps when he can, but Rodimus has him up to his microscope in special projects. There are Paradronian doctors by the score, but none of them can be trusted with this. They handle the civilians. I'm it for the Autobots, at least until my trainees are up to speed."

"Perceptor can't get time to help you?" Ratchet asked.

First Aid sighed. "He really can't. He really just can't."

Ratchet looked at him askance. "Optimus is usually more flexible than that."

"It isn't Optimus. It's Rodimus that's driving him," First Aid corrected.

Ratchet made a face. "Where I come from 'Rodimus' is Hot Rod, and he is all for people taking a break....especially if it's him!"

First Aid snickered. "He doesn't mean to be a slave driver. Really, he doesn't, but his brain just works like that. All the time. Contingency plans for this or that. How to block the teleporters, how to stop the telepaths, the shapers, the shape-shifters, the pyrokinetics.... If he seems to be in a hurry it's because time really isn't on our side. Every second it's like a miracle we aren't under attack!"

As if summoned by his words, the horde arrived at his door, and the first dull thud of cannon fire shook the med-lab.

Ratchet cringed, even though he had no physical form to defend. "Get your weapon!"

"I won't use a weapon! Don't I have a twin in your dimension?" First Aid cried.

"Yeah! I forgot!" Ratchet said.

First Aid went to the security monitor and saw at least fifty Paradronians and Autobots outside his door.

"Can't you make an exception? Just this once?" Ratchet asked.

x  
x  
x

"Constructicons! Constructicons DIE!" Omega Supreme roared, plunging his hand down to make good on his threat.

"Head for the lower levels!" Elita offered by way of advise. They scrambled to the edge and clambered down and away as quickly as they could. Rodimus and Elita had the easiest time of it, being lighter and more agile. The two of them worked to help Optimus and Magnus follow down the treacherous debris.

Not fast enough.

Omega couldn't reach them directly, but the level above them collapsed and rained down on them. They all dodged wildly, but they all took hits.

"Follow me!" Elita cried, transforming. They complied and followed suit. She led them away from their destination, away from Omega and his gaping pit.

"Elita?" Rodimus asked. "Do you know where we're going or are we just going?"

"I lived down here for four million years Rodi. What do you think?"

"Hey! Just checking," Rodimus snickered.

"Do you have a nice short cut for us? Preferably one with no delusional guardians along the way?" Optimus asked.

"No. There's only one tunnel down. I can get us down the pit further from Omega but we will have to get to the other side and back up to that top level to get to Vector Sigma," Elita said grimly.

"I was afraid you'd say that," Magnus grumbled.

"We made sure to close off the other routes," Rodimus said. "You helped."

"It was your idea!" Magnus accused.

"And a good thing too," Optimus said, "Or someone would probably already be there stealing that damned thing."

"Uh...Op?" Rodimus said. "How do you know they aren't there already?"

Optimus cursed at him.

Their tires all screeched and skidded as Elita led them through the warrens.

"How are we going to get past Omega Supreme? Not to mention the rest of that crowd? He thinks we're Constructicons!" Magnus asked.

"Well," Rodimus said dryly, "You could always sing to him!"

There was a long pause all around.

"I'd rather die," Magnus finally said.

x  
x  
x

Kup meditated.

Perceptor got caught up on a lot of projects and enjoyed not being disturbed. He reflected that he should retract his lab whenever he wanted to get things done with no interruptions.

Lancer and Pagan appeared on the bridge of the Maelstrom and dropped Spike off.

"What? How? What?" Spike asked, disoriented. He'd been so focused on his door that he hadn't really registered who had grabbed him.

Turning to find Rodimus' fanged out mate was not comforting.

"'What' is saving your life. 'How' is by teleporting you to the Maelstrom. 'What' again is Vector Sigma is running an offensive against the council with mind-controlled Transformers," Lancer said in her reverberating demonic voice.

"Not very bright, this male," Pagan said. "Else he would not have been standing there."

"He's bright enough," a very deep voice answered her. "When he chooses to be."

Pagan looked at Shellshock and said "*TK*".

Shellshock looked at Lancer, "You are going back down. Do you need help?"

"Not yet. Be ready. I may call, but I think it best if as few of us as possible get mixed up in this. Vector Sigma is a pain, but we don't want to bring the Jabez down on Cybertron either." Then she paused, and cocked her head at Shellshock. "Do...do you want to come?"

"Only if you need me," he rumbled.

Lancer nodded and was accosted by Marissa.

"Are Magnus and Rodimus OK?"

Lancer nodded. "For the moment. Elita is leading them on one doozy of a detour. I can't really help them so I'm going after the others. I bet anyone who was at that meeting has a big old target on them."

"Be careful," Marissa and Malice said together.

Lancer grinned. "They're only Transformers. I eat their kind for lunch. Pagan...if you would be so kind as to drop me back in Central?"

"Just so...but after this...I get a bath!" Pagan told her.

"Well earned too," Lancer said. They joined hands and vanished.

Spike blinked rapidly, still dazed and trying to catch up. A shadow fell over him. He looked up, and up. Eight feet of unsmiling human steel loomed over him.

Why would a mere eight feet of human seem so much bigger than fourteen feet of Autobot?

Maybe because the Autobot had looked friendly and this thing looked like the incarnation of death.

"Um...hello..G...Shellshock," Spike said.

"We need to talk," Shellshock said, in a voice that sounded like it was coming from a cavern...or the ninth level of hell.

"OK," Spike agreed.

x  
x  
x

Jazz was in trouble. Even if he hadn't been distracted, being assaulted by his friends was nothing he was prepared for. He was currently using the command chair to fend off his delusional friends like a lion tamer.

Blurr was proving to be the most problematic. Keeping him from getting round the flank without exposing himself to the other two was all Jazz could do. He backed up the stairs to the office, reluctant to draw his weapon. Unfortunately Vector Sigma had not extended him the same courtesy.

Outback really didn't need to be firing a mortar cannon inside of Central!

Jazz dove off the stairs and rolled across the room while both Blurr and Blaster tried to shoot him. As he did the upper-level of the command center exploded and shards of debris fell in sparkling, deadly showers. Both Jazz and his assailants were injured, but only Jazz seemed to feel it.

"Hey! Lay off guys! We're friends!" he cried. Desperately, he transformed and turned on the dazzlers full blast. Blurr went down like a stone. Outback slowed down considerably. Blaster was utterly unaffected.

Worse, Vector Sigma tried a new tactic.

"Friends?" Blaster said as he tried to work his way across the debris to get a clear shot. "You are no friend of mine, Jazz. When was the last time you paid any attention to me other than to USE me? You lie to me, you give me orders, you ignore me, and then you call me friend? You deserve to die!"

"Blaster! That ain't you talking Man! Since when do you talk like a stiff?" Jazz asked. He took to shooting at loose pieces of the ceiling. It kept Blaster dodging and dancing.

"Foolish Autobot! You defy your Maker! What happened to the rebel Prime and the puny spy-bot is immaterial! I am your creator, as I am theirs! Their lives were mine to give and mine to take. If you were more than pawns you would have seen through the Slavers sooner. Your minds are mine! Your souls are mine! Your disobedience is unthinkable!"

"Sigma, you lying piece of shit! You sure know how to inspire loyalty! Let my friends go!" Jazz screamed, losing his cool completely. Cussing at Vector Sigma always seemed to work for Rodimus, but Jazz found it ineffective in venting his rage.

Blaster laughed. Outback laughed and picked up the remnants of an entire console. Effortlessly, he threw it at Jazz. Jazz dodged, but in doing so opened himself up to Blaster's electro-scrambler. It wasn't a clean hit, but Jazz's left leg went numb and useless.

x  
x  
x

Springer and Arcee were forced to slow as they approached their destination.

Destination?

Wasn't the point to just drive aimlessly tonight?

They heard weapons fire and closed in on it. It occurred to both of them the Constructicons were attacking...but weren't they dead? No time to think about that though. They both drew weapons and raced towards the scene. They saw an angry mob of Transformers surrounding the entrance to Vector Sigma's tunnel and Omega Supreme.

Omega didn't look happy and had made quite a mess of the area.

"Omega Supreme!" Springer cried. He transformed into chopper mode and flew up to look the Guardian in the optics. "What's going on?"

"Constructicons. Enemies die!" Omega told him.

"That's what I like about you, Omega! You always get right to the point!" Springer flew down a ways into the chasm Omega had carved. "I don't see them! Are you sure they're there?"

Arcee looked nervously down the shaft as well. She would have found a Decepticon raiding party much more comfortable than the strange way the crowd was behaving. Most of them were imitating Omega's stunted speech pattern and the call of "Constructicons die," rolled through the crowd over and over.

She watched Springer's chopper mode descending into the shaft. The whirl of his rotors was sort of mesmerizing. What a mess. The Constructicons deserved to die for this one...but...weren't they already dead? Or...?

The noise of the crowd made more sense to her.

"Constructicons...die," she muttered to herself.

Springer hovered up out of the shaft. "If we find the Constructicons, they'll die," he said.

Arcee gasped and shook herself. Her mate presented the world with the sarcastic tough guy thing, but he didn't just kill things, even Decepticon things. For that matter, since when did making a mess constitute a death penalty for her either?

Besides, if the Cons were getting ready to assault Cybertron, wouldn't that mean Rodi planned it...or at least knew about it with all his bugs and KC-the-baby-sitter in her Viper suit?

Arcee doubted highly Rodimus had planned this fiasco, especially coming right off his little "vacation".

"Springer!" she cried to her muttering mate. "Snap out of it!"

This didn't go quite as planned. She did get Springer's attention, but she also drew the attention of the crowd, which suddenly turned away from the hole and on her.

x  
x  
x

Kup sat alone in the dark and tried to concentrate.

It wasn't easy though.

He was fairly certain Vector Sigma was still uploading ideas into his head.

The problem was it was being subtle about it now. There was no difference in the mental "voice" in his head when things he was suspicious of cropped up. Was it really Vector Sigma out to hurt him? Or were these thoughts really his own?

"It's probably forgotten me by now," Kup said aloud to the dark. "I'm not even really one of the council. I knew they were up to something, but I never dreamt of a set-up like that. Shellshock is probably right. I'm too old to be useful to them under these circumstances."

He thought about that for a minute or two.

"I'm worse than useless. I'm a gear-grinding detriment. I swore...I swore I would never hurt him again. I swore I'd never let anyone hurt him again...and then I go and turn on him! I turned on his mate! I turned on his baby!"

He sobbed, quietly to himself as he had done so much lately. It was only too easy to recall the look on Rodi's face when he told Kup he'd been tortured worse by Kup's betrayal than by the Jabez.

Kup thought back on that energon-freezing list of torment...casually tacked on the back wall of the council chamber like notes on a bulletin board. He took Rodi at his word and assumed their fight had surpassed that pain for his young friend.

Wow. What an achievement.

And Rodimus was so terribly young. Not even fifty Earth years yet. Not even half a vorn. To know such pain in your first century seemed unfathomably cruel to Kup, and then to have those who should have been helping and guiding turn into further tormentors?

Had Rodimus been right? Had Kup only hung around him to beat him down... unless it was to take credit for Rodi's successes?

The darkness seemed so kind. So appropriate. Maybe...maybe he should just...stay...here. It was peaceful. A fitting place for an old, obsolete warrior to simply drift away.

x  
x  
x

First Aid bolted around his lab with critical speed.

He was almost finished setting up, but his adversaries (his friends!) were almost finished blowing in his door. Thank the Matrix for those new, improved blast shields Perceptor had been badgered into making! Some of Rodi's mad plans were paying off anyway! Hopefully his madness was contagious - and his success too. Ratchet and First Aid had come up with something you'd have to be mad to pull off.

The door slowly whined and groaned inward. First Aid dove for the controller he had rigged out of spare parts and a prayer. Then he dove for the quarantine chamber.

"Hey! Don't leave me out here!" Ratchet called frantically. He might just be a matrix copy, but he still didn't want to die.

"Sorry Ratchet!" First Aid cried, frantically snatching the projection device off the worktable. "I forgot you can't follow me!"

The former Protectobot launched himself into the quarantine chamber and activated the force field. The chamber was supposed to keep pathogens IN, but this time he was hoping it would keep the invaders out. He fingered his other plan as the mob boiled in through his twisted door.

"Steady," Ratchet advised. "We've only got enough charge to set that thing off about 5 times."

First Aid nodded, but felt his systems struggling not to overheat.

Powerglide stood before him, one faint force-field away, and started shooting concussion bombs at First Aid's head, one after another.

The mob roared and started firing as one and First Aid squeezed off a powerful EMP which flattened the lot of them.

"Yes!" he cried, only to find the first mob trampled under a whole new horde.

He stared in horror, looking at all the wounds being caused as heedless people crushed the fallen under their feet.

x  
x  
x

"Well, we're back where we started," Optimus said, looking carefully up the gaping pit and hoping no one on the surface saw him. Rodimus had conveniently cloaked himself which annoyed his partner for some reason. Maybe because they were hearing the sounds of pursuit in the tunnels behind them.

"No we aren't," Rodi's cheerful voice came out of nowhere, "We're about eight levels further down from where we started."

"You know what I mean," Optimus sighed.

"Heh. This is what you get for breaking universal law and sending someone named 'Prime' on vacation," Rodimus remarked dryly.

"I'll remember that the next time you try it on me," Optimus retorted.

Above them the crowd was no longer surrounding the pit, but it was still there. They seemed to all be looking off to the left. Even Omega Supreme was looking elsewhere.

"We might get a break here," Magnus said. "Something's got them distracted."

"I feel sorry for whoever it is," Elita said grimly.

"We need to get back up to the top level," Rodimus said. Looking up made them all tired. There was nothing to do but climb. "Anybody have a tow cable? It might make things easier."

"I do," Magnus said, transforming back into carrier mode. A compartment opened, and Optimus retrieved the cable.

"Too bad it doesn't have a grappling hook," Rodimus remarked.

"Yeah, I've done so much repelling in my lifetime," Magnus snapped.

"Give," Rodimus said to Optimus.

"It might help if I could see you," Optimus informed his partner testily, holding the line out to thin air. It was removed from his hand and vanished into Rodi's cloaking field. "Is that the same kind of cloak the Maelstrom uses?"

"Of course," nothing answered.

"Why didn't you tell me you had that. All this time I've been thinking you were just sneaky!" Optimus complained.

"I am sneaky, but there's no assassin's trick in the universe that's gonna hide this paint job! Really Op! You could have just asked," Rodimus' voice came back.

"What are you doing?" Elita wanted to know.

"Making a grappling hook out of all this lovely scrap Omega so kindly dropped for us. Stand back a bit," Rodimus told them. There was a whirring noise from the exposed center of the pit, a grunt, and a clank on one of the levels above them. The line became visible as it extended past his cloaking field, so they were able to see it fly up, land on a ruined floor above them, and completely fail to catch on anything.

Rodimus sighed, coiled up the line, and tried again.

And missed again.

"With all that jagged crap up there you'd think I'd get somewhere," he complained.  
The others watched the rope disappearing back into the cloaking field with fascination...and anxiety.

"That mob is getting closer," Magnus commented.

"No pressure," Optimus said. He took a defensive position a few yards up the tunnel though, and rested his rifle at ready on some of the rubble.

The whirring began again and this time when Rodimus landed the twisted metal "hook" he had made, it caught.

Elita headed for the line.

"Where do you think your going?" Rodimus asked.

"Up first," she told him sweetly.

"Uh...I don't think so," he responded.

"That's because you don't think dear," Elita told him. "I'm lighter than any of you, and if you think that little bit of trash you jury-rigged is gonna hold your weight, you are even more crazy than I thought."

"Omega won't see me," Rodimus argued.

"He won't see me either," Elita informed him. "You aren't the only assassin around here anymore, remember, and unlike you I have toned down the paint job. I'll be fine, and we will discuss your over-protectiveness later." She took the cable from his relaxed, invisible fingers and scurried up the line.

"Oo. Bulldozer one. Winnebego zero," Magnus said.

"I'm not a Winnebego," Rodimus said. His disembodied voice sounded resigned.

"And Elita's not a bulldozer!" Optimus protested. He kept looking over his shoulder, obviously torn between guarding the tunnel and watching his mate climb up the line like a spider. "If I didn't know where to look, I'd never find her," he remarked.

"That's the point," Rodimus muttered. "She's doing very well, by the way."

High above them the top of the pit cleared out. Omega Supreme and the bulk of the crowd moved away from the opening. Elita reached the top of the cable and spent a few minutes tying it more securely to an undamaged support beam. She waved down at them when she was done.

"Go," Rodimus said, giving Optimus a push towards the line. Optimus was the only one of the group with no assassin's training, but it hardly mattered. He made swift and steady progress, although if anyone had looked down at that time they would have seen him.

Omega Supreme loomed back into view overhead, and they dimly heard the voices up-top rising in anger and frustration.

"You go, Rodimus. I'll wait until they clear back a bit," Magnus said.

Rodimus amazingly didn't argue. Magnus couldn't see or hear his cloaked friend scramble up the cable, but he could see the line itself moving and straining with Rodi's weight. Unfortunately when the cable finally went still, Omega Supreme was actually closer to the pit.

The Guardian was distracted however. That was good. Unfortunately, he was being distracted by Springer, who he was trying to kill. Not so good. The horde in the tunnel was suddenly quite close as well.

Throwing a prayer to...well...Magnus didn't know who to pray to, so he just thought about Marissa and ran for the cable. The cord groaned under his weight as he tried desperately to make this fast.

"Magnus!" Rodimus hissed back down at him. "Morph! And hang on!"

Terrified and inspired by that crazy idea, Magnus complied. One huge, distinctly visible City Commander suddenly became a much less conspicuous, if highly squishable human. He held on to the suddenly huge and painfully tough cable for dear life with his arms and legs. An invisible force pulled him up swiftly and Optimus and Elita disappeared deeper into the tunnel. Magnus looked up at Omega Supreme and thought of new synonyms for big and scary.

"Look! I caught a big one!" Rodimus said, pulling Magnus the rest of the way up and displaying him like a hooked fish.

` "If I could see you, I would hit you," Magnus said. "Have you gotten in touch with Springer yet?"

Optimus nodded distractedly, obviously in communication with the triple-changer.

Springer's voice came in over the comm even as they saw his chopper mode circling and diving madly around Omega. The Guardian swatted at him wildly. "I'm trying to keep Omega off Arcee. She high-tailing it from the rest of the crowd! Prime! We think Vector Sigma is controlling these folks!"

"We know," Optimus said. "It tried to invade Elita and me! It's finally gotten desperate!"

"I'm getting desperate! I can't keep this up much longer! Ahh! Watch it Omega! That hurt!"

"Constructicon! Die!" Omega ordered.

"Hey! Since when am I a Constructicon?" Springer cried. "Omega! This is SPRINGER!"

"LIES!" Omega Supreme roared.

"Have you ever seen a Constructicon fly like this?" Springer cried, doing a lovely loop around Omega's flailing clawed limb.

"This looks like a scene out of King Kong," Rodimus observed unhelpfully.

True, but Springer's question seemed to give the Guardian pause.

"Keep talking to him Springer!" Rodi yelled. "You're gettin' to him! Talk fast and fly faster!"

"Like you had to tell me that!" Springer snapped.

The four ranking Autobots looked on while Springer broke all the records for ariel maneuvering. Above the one-sided battle went on. Below them, an angry crowd found their way into the base of the pit.

x  
x  
x

On the bridge of the Maelstrom, things were deceptively quiet. Robert sent a small fleet of com-eyes down to keep an eye on things, including Lancer's. When hers found her, she cursed and blessed the stupid thing, and her unmentionable words filled the bridge.

Her friends laughed.

Marissa expressed similar sentiments at length. She wanted to be there and her twins were kicking wildly over her agitation.

Spike stood on the bridge in a cold sweat.

Ambassador Witwicky was not intimidated by the Drazi, and he didn't know enough about the humans to feel anything about them one way or another. Jordan's species he had dealt with before, and he found them pleasant to work with...plus...Carly had really like Claudia, although the female wasn't on the bridge.

Shellshock scared the crap out of him.

Spike tried to evaluate this man with fresh eyes. Nearly eight feet tall and giving the impression he was nearly that wide, Shellshock looked like a human tank and moved like a cat. The bulk and the smooth motion were a disconcerting combination. The former Autobot's skin had a slightly metallic sheen to it. From a distance he merely looked tan, but up close you could see a goldish overtone that had nothing to do with sun-worship.

His eyes were golden, with very dark centers and dark lashes that made them seem to glow like a tiger's. His hair and beard were exactly the same tone, unkempt, shaggy, and yet somehow still reflectively glossy. Obviously he rarely combed or trimmed them, but they were determined to look healthy in spite of him.

"Let's go." Shellshock said. The voice was deep and devoid of inflection...but Spike knew, if he'd heard it unknowing, there would have been something about it. Something nagging and familiar.

It was the first hint of his lost friend, and suddenly his heart was breaking.

"Where are we going?" Spike asked. He wanted to stay on the bridge and keep tabs on Cybertron's problems, but he wouldn't dream of arguing right now.

"My quarters," Shellshock said. He turned and left, not looking back to see if Spike would follow.

Spike followed.

Talon looked at Malice who seemed ready to faint. "He never lets anyone in his quarters!"

Continued in Part F


	6. Chapter 6

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part F

Continued from Part E

Jazz was getting desperate, and running out of things to hide behind. He kept trying to reach out to his friends, but whenever he made progress on one, the other would step up the heat.

Even a nice round of Mozart wasn't enough to shock Blaster out of his delusions...although it did make him pause and tilt his head, as if listening. Blurr Jazz just dazzled over and over. Every time he got up, Jazz would put him back down. The repeated dazzlings weren't slowing Outback down anymore though.

"Come on Man! I don't want to hurt you!" Jazz cried again. He was really running out of options.

"You already have," Blaster said in a voice not entirely unlike his own.

Jazz grimaced. That wasn't Vector Sigma. That was truth. The pain in his friend's voice distracted him and Outback moved to flank the Specialist. He took careful aim and fired lasers right at Jazz's face.

The bolts turned mid-air.

It was enough to shock all three Autobots into lowering their weapons.

They followed the beams as they made a distinct turn and headed for the doorway, where they hit and were absorbed by a black and grey, vaguely feminine looking nightmare.

"Lancer!" Jazz cried.

Blaster and Outback turned their weapons on her. They were free of Sigma's control for the moment, but she was a stranger...a very scary looking stranger.

She ignored them.

"Jazz! Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm a bit singed Fair Maiden. Thanks for the rescue!" Jazz cried. He limped her direction.

"You...you know...it?" Outback asked nervously.

"Are you guys alright?" Jazz asked.

"What happened to the command center I can't remember the last few minutes and one minute it was fine and now it looks like Devastator went through and who is this person I've never seen anyone like you before who are you is all this your fault?"

"No, it's not my fault," Lancer said with a smirk.

Jazz was impressed she didn't need a translator...oh yeah.

"Who are you? What are you?" Outback demanded brusquely.

"Ease off Man. She's on our side," Jazz said urgently. "She's... she's..." He sighed. "She's classified."

"Classified?" Blaster asked.

"We need to get going," Lancer said to Jazz. "You are not the only target."

"No surprise there Your Ladyship. Who are we going after next?" Jazz asked.

"Springer and Arcee are under attack by Omega Supreme. I think they could use a hand," Lancer said.

"How do you know?" Jazz asked.

She arched an eyebrow at him.

"Oh..Ro...right," the Specialist recovered quickly.

Blaster was looking stunned. "I'm receiving emergency transmissions from all over Cybertron! One at a time! What do you mean where have I been? I've been...I've been here....blasting at Jazz. Jazz! What's goin' down?"

"The minds of your people are under attack Blaster. Hopefully it will be over soon. Mind your thoughts. Mind each other," Lancer said. Her eyes flared white and her voice waxed demonic. "Let's go Jazz!"

She turned fluidly and fled the room. Jazz waved and followed her.

Blaster looked for a chair to flop down into and found nothing but wreckage all around him. He sighed and shook his head. "Just when I thought this night couldn't get any weirder," he groaned.

x  
x  
x

Arcee's tires squealed. Arcee squealed too as she narrowly avoided the grasping hands of the crowd and the grasping hand of Omega Supreme. Banking sharply left turned her up on two wheels but it got her a slight lead on the Paradronians who had been surrounding her. Few of them even had vehicle transforms but those that did were no match for her horse-power. They attempted instead, to flank her and cut off her escape. The crowd spread out across the plaza, expanding into a sort of moaning crescent moon.

She burned rubber for the nearest exit and barely jinked in time when Omega's hand made another grab for her. The frantic femme supposed she should be grateful that the Guardian preferred hands-on demolition and didn't start shooting. With a range of roughly fifty miles his lasers would surely catch her long before she could drive to safety.

"Constructicons!" Omega roared.

Arcee was sick of that. "Omega I'm a PINK car! Do I look like any of those ugly beasts at all?" She dodged a group of Paradronians and they chased her madly. "So much for pacifists!" Arcee yelled at them. "Aren't you guys supposed to hate violence?"

"Constructicons," said the crowd.

"I thought you guys were against violence against anyone! Even Decepticons!" Arcee pointed out. She was desperate to reach the far end of the plaza. Just a little more....

Omega roared in frustration again. Her mate must be really annoying him now, but she couldn't slow down to check.

It didn't matter. The lapse in concentration, however brief, was enough to allow the swarm of bodies to enclose her in. She skidded, fish-tailed, and said, "Sorry!" when she slammed a few Paradronians into the wall.

She made a u-turn to try another path and found herself confronted with a tank.

"Blitz!" she cried.

He fired on her, and she was surprised at how surprised she was. It had been a long time since she'd thought of him as dangerous. Fortunately, he was no match for her agility and she zagged around him.

"Shame on you!" she scolded. "What would Rodimus say?"

It was a low blow, really it was, but it did the trick.

"Wh...Where am I?" Blitzwing said. "How did I get here?"

"We're being mind-controlled!" Arcee said. "Omega Supreme thinks we're Constructicons!"

"That's a stretch!" Blitzwing muttered. "You're about as far from a Constructicon as they come!"

"Thanks! Can you get me through the crowd?" Arcee asked, circling him in ever smaller spirals. The crowd was closing in.

He laughed, and fired off his electro-scrambler several times. Paradronians spun drunkenly in all directions and toppled over harmlessly. They wouldn't be permanently hurt, but they would be incapable of walking straight for a good while.

They both made for alleyways. Springer flew away from them, distracting Omega as best he could by encroaching and retreating on Omega's personal space. He continued talking to the guardian, using sarcasm to point out that he was distinctly NOT a Constructicon.

"Yo! Omega! I know I'm green and all, but I'm a different green! I look cool while they're just putrid! It really hurts my feelings you can't tell the difference! Ahh! Not to mention my tail! That was close!"

He waited for a response, expecting something poetic like "DIE!" but he got none. He looked back.

Omega Supreme was standing stock still. Then he sagged to his knees. Then he fell forward.

"Goodnight sweet prince," Lancer said.

"What'cha do to him?" Jazz asked.

"I drained his energon. He's gonna take a little nappy now," Lancer said.

"You can do that?" Jazz asked.

"Obviously. Springer! Where are Arcee and Blitzwing? Your boss wants to know," Lancer called to the triple changer who was flying up to join Jazz looking nervously at the fallen giant. Most of the crowd had followed Arcee. The rest, looking dazed, was wandering off.

"I don't know," Springer said, "but I'll catch up with them!" He took off.

"He could have radioed her," Lancer said with a sigh.

"True, but this is more heroic," Jazz said.

x  
x  
x

First Aid paced his small haven frantically. Here he was, in a state of the art med-lab, with Ratchet - greatest Autobot Medical Officer of all time, surrounded by patients and he couldn't help a single one of them.

His shelter had become a prison. When the room filled up with invaders he hit the EMP, adding a new layer of bodies to the ones already there. They would have been undamaged except for the new "volunteers" trampling on those already down.

Plus, he only had one hit on the EMP left.

No shortage of crazed, mind controlled Transformers though.

"Are you sure this is all Vector Sigma?" Ratchet asked. He didn't know anything about the super computer. In his universe, there wasn't one. "How can it do that?"

"It does that when it activates us. It leaves a backdoor in our programming," First Aid explained. "That's the theory anyway."

"You will like our style of reproduction much better, I promise," Ratchet said.

First Aid's head whirled around, "What do you mean?"

"Didn't Rodimus tell you? I examined him when they were with us. Physiologically there's no difference between your universe and ours. You should be able to reproduce without Vector Sigma once you all know what to do."

"What?" First Aid repeated.

"He really didn't tell you did he? That's funny. I thought he was about ready to explode with that news," Ratchet mused.

"What?" First Aid said.

"You are suffering from neural overload," Ratchet diagnosed.

"What?" First Aid said.

Ratchet waited while the medic's brain caught up.

"They'll kill him," First Aid finally said.

Ratchet blinked. "What?" he said.

"Rodimus...they'll kill him. Everyone was ready to blow Vector Sigma to smithereens right after the meeting but Rodimus kept reminding them we'd go extinct without it. He was stalling...he was keeping this news...this wonderful news....! He did say he wanted to talk to me... Wow. This is big."

So big in fact, First Aid almost missed how his lab filled up with hostile neighbors again.

Ratchet gulped when they started trying to find the power supply for the force field. He called First Aid's attention to it and watched the medic expend their last charge. Frustrated, his holographic hands shook. If he could pick up anything those morons would see some uses for medical tools they didn't expect.

Not gonna happen. Time to quit fantasizing and think.

"You mean to tell me there isn't ANYONE who's ever been... err... activated without Vector Sigma's help?"

"Only in rumors," First Aid sighed. "Oh...and the Dinobots."

"The Dinobots? Grimlock and crew? How did they come online then?" Ratchet asked.

"You...you and Wheeljack built them. On Earth," First Aid said.

"Oh...that's different," Ratchet said, feeling a bit uncomfortable. "Does that mean they don't have a back door?"

They looked at each other.

First Aid opened his com-lines. "GRIMLOCK!" they yelled together.

x  
x  
x

"Jazz and Springer are OK," Rodimus reported to his companions. They were racing through the tunnel again, now too deep to be easily reached from the surface.

"What about Omega and Arcee?" Optimus demanded.

"Lancer knocked Omega out, and they are going after Arcee. No reports on her condition though," Rodimus said.

"Lancer knocked him out?" Magnus asked incredulously.

"Yeah. She just drained him. He'll be fine. She got Spike and Marissa to the Maelstrom and..."

"Wait....why is Marissa on the Maelstrom..." Magnus asked. Then his tires screeched to a halt. It was better for everyone that he was last. "It went after her! It sent those mind controlled goons after her!"

Rodimus confirmed. "It looks like everyone at the meeting was a target. Spike's place got hit too...but the new armor held long enough for Pagan and Lancer to retrieve them. However my friend, you will be going to buy new furniture."

"What?!"

"Yes. You see, the new armor only works when the front door remains closed. Marissa opened the door herself."

"Why would she do something that stupid?" Magnus snapped. He felt his mate was being falsely accused.

"Ah. Never underestimate the hormones of pregnancy Big Guy. She went to do battle dressed in her maternity nighty and a laser cannon," Rodimus said. His voice was suspiciously flat.

"Oh...damn it. I can see her doing that," Magnus said. Then he snickered and Rodimus felt it safe to laugh.

"Is she really alright?" Elita wondered. She was used to sound judgement from Marissa. This didn't qualify.

"Pregnancy will do that to you," Rodi said.

"I'll never know," Elita told him.

For some reason, Rodi found that funny.

x  
x  
x

Spike followed Shellshock down the long halls of the Maelstrom. The corridors were barren and stale for the most part, although here and there some hand-made signs added a touch of color and humor.

There were lots of mean caricatures of Jabez here and there. The restrooms were marked "little girls" and "little boys."

Spike looked at the back he was following. Little. Right.

Eventually as they walked, and walked Spike realized the signs were really to distinguish the halls from one another. He hoped he would never be left to find his way around. Every hall looked identical. Intersections would have as many as five branching hallways. He suddenly realized the whole place was built on hexagons. Hexagons for tiles, for doors, for wall panels...and hexagons for the sections they were passing. Like an enormous bee-hive, the Maelstrom's areas were laid out in hexagon-shaped cells. Except that each cell was the size of a city block.

His feet were getting tired.

"How big is this ship?" he wondered aloud to himself. Shellshock was so quiet Spike didn't expect an answer.

"Huge. Much bigger than Autobot City," Shellshock said.

"And the living quarters are this far from the bridge?" Spike asked incredulously.

"Not all of them. Just mine," Shellshock said.

"Oh..." Spike answered. "Sorry. ....I guess you like your privacy."

"Yes," came the flat reply. "But it also helps Claudia. She finds my presence... disturbing."

"Oh," Spike said. "Sorry."

"We are nearly there," Shellshock told him.

"Good," Spike said. "How can you tell?"

There was no answer this time, but they turned and amazingly stopped at one of the odd doors. Shellshock put his hand on a panel next to the doorframe and it opened. This mystified Spike...as far as he could see the spot Shellshock touched on the wall was identical to everything else.

Inside the room was Shellshock's residence.

Spike winced inwardly. This guy made Ultra Magnus look like Martha Stewart.

Bed...perfectly made. No personal objects of any kind. A table. A desk with a monitor. Only one chair. Spotless. Dustless. And above the monitor, magnet-tacked to the wall, fifteen perfectly straight photographs arranged in a row. They faces were all unsavory looking. The photos taken from odd angles. These weren't personal shots. They were surveillance snaps.

"Who?" Spike asked.

"Targets," Shellshock told him.

Spike looked at him a bit blankly.

"Slavers," Shellshock explained. "This is my work. Finding slavers."

"Slavers? Like the ones that hurt Daniel?" Spike whispered.

"Killed," Shellshock corrected. "Like the ones that killed Daniel. He was dead already when Rodimus pulled the chip."

Spike's skin flushed, then went white. He didn't argue, but he didn't answer either. He looked down and felt Shellshock's eyes on him. He swallowed a few times and finally managed, "why did you bring me here?"

"I didn't want you to know I was alive," Shellshock said with no hint of apology, "but since you do I feel I owe you an explanation."

"Why?" Spike asked.

"Because we were friends," Shellshock said.

"We'll always be friends," Spike said firmly. "What I meant was why didn't you want me to know you were alive?"

"You don't know me anymore," the ex-Autobot growled. "Don't be so quick to assume you will still call me friend."

"We'll always be friends," Spike reiterated.

"Really? Will you always be friends with Rodimus too?" Shellshock asked harshly.

"That's different," Spike said.

"No. It isn't. The slavers that took Daniel and Wheelie were on this wall when they got them. The crew of this ship decided they weren't our top priority and went after another operation. I was one who voted to leave them alive for another week."

Spike stared. The golden, emotionless eyes stared back.

"What would have happened if you voted otherwise?" Spike finally managed.

"They would have been dead a week sooner, Daniel would be alive, and the thirty young people we rescued from the other slavers would be Converts if they were lucky and sentient sex or labor slaves if they weren't."

Spike winced, and returned to his original question in a form of retreat. "Why didn't you want me to know you're alive?"

"Because I wanted to cut ties with the Autobots and you went along with the package," Shellshock said.

"Why didn't you want to come home?"

"Because I wanted to hunt Slavers, and the Autobots weren't doing that. They were allowing Slavers to run through Cybertron like water through a sieve...and I doubt they'd have approved of our methods. We thought Rodimus was dead when I made that choice. He hadn't started his work. By the time I learned he was alive and running his campaign, I was established here."

"His campaign?" Spike asked.

Shellshock bared his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile. It looked like a barracuda stretching its jaws. "He's hunting slavers too. Has been since he got home. He is all kinds of vicious about it too."

Spike shook his head, mystified. "I know what he's been doing. He takes short day shifts and then he goes off goofing all night."

"What makes you so sure he goofs all night? Do you go with him?" Shellshock asked.

"No, but there are always stories.... Stories which are complete lies aren't they?" Spike said. It wasn't really a question.

"Rodimus has spent every night since Daniel died, helping us track down his killers and anyone associated with them," Shellshock said coldly. "Your son has been avenged, Spike....with interest."

Spike didn't say anything to that, so Shellshock brought up a video file and brought the Ambassador out of any illusions he might have had about what his friends were capable of.

The clip only lasted about five minutes before Spike turned away, retching. In that time he'd seen Lancer tearing out Convert throats with her teeth, Rodimus breaking necks and cutting humans in two, and Shellshock snapping bodies over his knee like thin tree branches. They were part of a much larger melee and the rest of the Maelstrom crew behaved no less violently. At the same time, Spike saw that the mutants they were facing were capable of telekinetically throwing them across the room, throwing fire from nowhere, shooting cactus-like needles all over the area, and melting the floor out from under their feet. The Converts' blank eyes frightened and sickened him. No Decepticon had ever induced this stomach turning revulsion. Their brutality was at least alive.

Dead and deadly. These Converts made him more ill than the violence that ended them. Freed them.

Spike suddenly understood. Like a phobic person striking at a roach, Rodimus could have no more held back on striking Daniel's Convert down than he could have reversed gravity. These vile things...Spike could only see them as things, were an abomination. If he had been confronted with one with Danny's face....

It didn't bring his wife's mind back, but Spike felt some of his own return. Sort of.

"Want a beer?" asked Shellshock.

x  
x  
x

Kup contemplated. He wondered. He spread out options in his mind like so many cards in a deck. Certainly, permanent shut down was an option. Here in the quiet it seemed a natural, sensible choice. Rodimus would feel better without having to worry about a pestilence like Kup hanging around.

In the dark, the old warrior's optics suddenly flared.

"A pestilence?! YOU are the pestilence Vector Sigma! I am going to make AMENDS for what I did! What you pushed me to do, you rusty heap of diodes! I am not going to cheat my way out of this! I am going to make friends with Lancer even if she kills me, and I'm going to get to know those cute little girls!"

He stood up and looked around. "I'm lost!" he cried defiantly. "But now I'm going to get un-lost!"

x  
x  
x

Springer caught up with Arcee and Blitzwing with little difficulty. Blitz's tank mode was slow, but he refused to take to the air while Arcee was being hounded. He covered her by going down the road backwards and basically blocking traffic. When the crowd got too thick he swung his turret to and fro to sweep them back. Arcee was doing her share of smart maneuvering to harmlessly knock pedestrians ahead of them down.

They noted an interesting phenomenon as they went.

Many of those clearly under control were fighting it. Some were even coming to their senses and trying to intervene with friends that weren't. Most of the time their efforts were successful.

By the time Springer heroically zoomed towards them, there was really not much for him to save them from.

"Drat," he said. "Missed the party."

"And they say Cons are battle hungry," Blitzwing remarked dryly.

"We need to go back and hook up with Jazz and Lancer," Springer said, nodding back the way he came. It was an interesting maneuver in 'chopper mode.

"Lancer's here?" Blitzwing said.

"What about Omega Supreme?" Arcee asked.

"He's in stasis. Lancer did something to him," Springer said.

There was a long pause while the three of them contemplated that.

"Rodi sure does know how to pick 'em," Arcee said.

x  
x  
x

"Why so many 'bots attack First Aid?" Grimlock asked. "Did First Aid say something stupid?"

First Aid sighed. Grimlock's attitude was one of sympathetic understanding. Apparently he had experience.

"No...they are...they are sick, Grimlock. Their minds are sick. Optimus and Rodimus are working to make them better," the medic tried.

"You supposed to make better," Slag pointed out forcefully.

Obviously someone thought First Aid wasn't doing his job.

"I can't make this sickness better," First Aid explained. "Only Prime can."

"Which one?" Grimlock asked.

"Either," First Aid said tiredly. He was busy trying to triage wounds the crowd had inflicted on itself trying to get to him. Crushed fingers and limbs were the most common, but there were a few bad cases with crunched heads and chests.

Fortunately, this was the basic nuts and bolts stuff he was best at, and only two were serious enough to worry him.

A new wave of potential patients was building outside and First Aid wondered whether he was just making more work for himself calling the Dinos. True, it had seemed an inspired idea at the time, and he was now comfortable enough to step out of quarantine to help the wounded, but...

Grimlock, Slag, Swoop, and Sludge rumbled back out through his breached wall and made their presence known. The four of them made for an imposing wall of teeth and armor that nothing in the crowd had a prayer of scratching. To Aid's relief, Vector Sigma's control seemed to have met its match in the Dinos. Most of the potential attackers just ran.

When Jazz and the others arrived to rescue him, he was busy fixing confused Paradronians as fast as his fingers could twiddle.

Busy and distracted as he was, he still made note of his deceitful leader's deceitful mate.

"Lancer! Do you have something to tell me?" he challenged.

The mutant's exo-suit didn't have visible lips, but her optics showed her typical slant-eyed-laser stare quite accurately. She was at his side in a pulse.

"What's up?" she said quietly.

"You two weren't going to tell everyone that we don't need Vector Sigma to rep....UMMPH!" First Aid found his vocalizer suddenly cut off from his neural network.

"Be quiet!" Lancer hissed. "It hasn't been tested yet! Rodimus is the only one they looked at and he's not exactly a typical specimen is he? What if they kill Sigma and then find out it won't work here! Sometimes Rodimus PRIME has reasons for not blabbing every damned thing."

First Aid looked a bit stunned, but he nodded and she returned his vocal control to him.

"You are right. I'm sorry. Tell Rodimus I'm sorry I didn't trust his judgement," First Aid said contritely.

"Well, if we are right, you've had Sigma's help with that too First Aid. How did you find out?"

"Ratchet told me," First Aid said.

Lancer blinked. She blinked again. "Um...what do you mean Ratchet told you?"

"Well, apparently his dimensional twin did a bit too good of a job transferring everything he knows into that crystal," First Aid explained.

"So, now I'm here....sort of," Ratchet explained.

The other Autobots, especially Jazz, gaped openly. Lancer merely arched an eyebrow.

"Full personality transfer?" she asked.

"It seems so," Ratchet agreed. "I've been looking for gaps in my memory...nothing seems missing."

"Oh boy," Lancer said. Somewhere down in the tunnels, her mate was trying to shake his wheels off all three axles laughing so hard.

Jazz was trying to stammer something when his communicator went off.

"Jazz?!"

"Wha...wha..What?!" Jazz finally got out.

"Um...you blow a circuit?" Outback asked.

"N..No. What is it?"

"Blaster's being overrun with communications of weird stuff going on all over the planet but we've got one that's really off the charts. Those are his words by the way. There's a mob down by the old ruins at Crystal City. Reports are maybe about two to three hundred Transformers...they are all working together and no one can get them to stop!"

"What are they doin'" Jazz asked.

"They're digging. They're digging really fast. No one knows why, but I can't seem to raise either Prime or Magnus to report it."

Jazz looked at Lancer who had that unfocused head-to-one-side stance she got when communing with Rodimus. She looked at Jazz and nodded, her optics flaring white.

"We're going," Jazz said. "Keep us informed."

"We'll do our best. Blaster's about ready to overload," Outback said grimly.

"Tell him to keep his circuits in," Lancer said...or rather Rodi said through her. "If he really is going to short out make him take a break! We can't afford all of our communications down."

Apparently her voice carried nicely over the comm because Outback said to Jazz, "Who IS that person? She talks like she's in charge or something."

"She's not, but she got word back from Rodimus," Jazz explained, sort of.

Blaster's harried voice came at them from a distance in the command center.

"How can she get through when I can't?"

"What was that Blaster? I didn't copy!" Jazz said hurriedly. "We'll get back to you when we get there! Jazz out!"

"Smooth," Springer said.

"You had a better plan Man?" Jazz snapped.

"Err...no," Springer admitted.

"Right...now all we need is an express ticket to the wreckage formerly known as Crystal City," Jazz said.

"Omega Supreme will take us," Lancer said, waving goodbye to First Aid and Ratchet.

"He will?" Springer asked nervously.

Continued in Part G


	7. Chapter 7

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part G

Continued from Part F

"Well guys, we already suspected we were in a race," Rodimus told his companions. Their engines were all whining with effort. "Now we know. Sigma's got a concentrated effort going at the old Crystal City tunnel site. There are hundreds digging. I'm sure they are making some headway."

"Lying piece of fucking shit."

"Orion! Watch your language!" Elita said.

"Our gang is on the way," Rodimus said. "They're going to get Omega to fly them."

"OMEGA!?" the other three cried in disbelief.

"He'll have snapped out of it by now," Rodimus assured them. "They'll persuade him. Besides, it's Crystal City getting messed up. He'll go."

"It's already messed up," Elita pointed out.

"Yes, but he regards it as sacred ground," Optimus mused. "You are right. He will help them. What will they do once they get there is another matter. There's only five of them."

"It'll be OK," Rodimus said.

"One of those five, well, six with Omega, is your mate Rodi!" Magnus pointed out. He had lots of respect for Lancer but three hundred to six was a bit long on odds.

Rodimus laughed. "Did I tell you that on our little visit my sweet little Lancer ripped Megatron's arm off and smacked him in the face with it?"

"EWW! Ouch!" Elita gasped.

Magnus laughed. "Oh I would have paid to see that one!"

"Magnus! Violence shouldn't be celebrated like that," Elita said. However there was a very distinct quaver in her voice.

"I've got footage," Rodimus told Magnus. He didn't acknowledge Elita's laughter...it was building in her like a series of small earthquakes. He could see it as her vehicle mode shuddered harder and harder.

"That's really not funny Rodimus," his partner told him.

"Yes it is. You just don't have a sense of humor right now. Here, I'll cheer you up. You know that thing we gave First Aid? The medical reference?"

Yes," Optimus said.

"Well, it's really a matrix crystal Ratchet put his knowledge into. It looks like it worked better than expected, because there is a fully sentient hologram in the med-lab with Ratchet's personality helping Aid patch up victims."

"You're kidding!" Elita said. Optimus and Magnus were both speechless.

"Nope," Rodimus said. "Looks like I brought back a stow-away after all. Hey Look! Drones!"

Three of them skidded to a halt. Magnus had to transform and slide to avoid hitting Optimus' back end.

Rodimus didn't stop. He floored it and sent the first ranks of several hundred drones flying back through their own formation.

"Where has that lying piece of shit been hiding these?" Magnus growled.

"They're easily defeated!" Elita cried.

"It doesn't need to defeat us," Optimus growled. It just needs to slow us down!" He transformed, drew his rifle, and started blasting. Magnus and Elita did the same. They all waded in after Rodimus.

x  
x  
x

Kup wandered the tunnels. He really was lost. Now and then he thought he'd seen or heard something that seemed familiar but it never panned out.

Then it dawned on him that Vector Sigma might be vindictive enough to mess with his perceptions to the point he never found his way out. He might be steps from the surface and not even know it.

He broke all his records for cussing and pulled his weapon. He began scratching marks into the walls with his rifle. Maybe he would never find his way out. Maybe he would die down here, but at least his friends would know he didn't give up on them or himself. If he left them, it wasn't going to be from lack of trying.

x  
x  
x

Perceptor just loved all the work he was getting done. Unfortunately his force field didn't hold up as long as he thought it would. Now the zombies were working on his blast doors and he was making note of a design flaw in his storm shelter. No back door. If they got in, he wasn't getting out.

That would sure put a damper on his work. Damn.

x  
x  
x

First Aid cried out with joy when his new assistants showed up. He had to convince the Dinos to let them through, which wasn't easy, but he managed. Opal and Obsidian didn't stop for pleasantries. The femmes took silent note of the mess, regarded Ratchet without comment, and got to work.

Ratchet watched the two of them working silently, as if they were one being with two sets of hands. "What did you need me for? They are brilliant...and fast!"

First Aid nodded. "They will surpass me in no time, but they aren't fully trained and I am their only teacher. Usually I'm too busy to work with them."

The femmes kept working as if they weren't being discussed.

Then they all looked up as Grimlock roared a challenge. A new horde was heading their way.

x  
x  
x

"The Constructicons are NOT here," Jazz told Omega very seriously. The huge Bot still seemed dazed and Jazz felt it best not to tell Omega the Cons had NEVER been there.

Omega looked over his friends. Jazz, Springer, Arcee, and Blitzwing. He didn't see Lancer. She was cloaked.

"Yeah, but there's a bunch of mind-controlled Autobots and Paradronians digging at Crystal City," Arcee said.

If there were ever any two things besides Constructicons which got Omega's energon in a boil, it was mind-control and anything disturbing the ghosts of Crystal City.

"Get in," he said, transforming and lowering the ramp to his rocket mode.

None of them dreamt of arguing.

It was the quickest and bumpiest ride across Cybertron any of them would ever experience and they were at the dig site in less than ten minutes.

That just left them with the crowd.

It had apparently grown since Blaster's report and now boasted about five hundred busy mechanical gophers.

When they roared in for a landing all but the front diggers turned to face them.

Vector Sigma was apparently learning. It had seen to it all of them had picked up a weapon somewhere or another.

x  
x  
x

Spike took the beer. He was nauseous from watching the tape... but... what the hell. If there was ever a day for needing a beer...or maybe a whole keg...sitting here with this hulk of a man was surely the day.

Shellshock had paused the video. Rodimus' crazed face filled the screen.

Coincidence surely.

Right.

And Spike was the tooth fairy.

"You really don't think I should hold him responsible for what happened to Danny?" Spike whispered. "That's why you brought me here."

"I accuse my former leaders of many things Spike. Complacency. Blindness. Arrogance towards humans which the Slavers have been taking full advantage of...but you accuse him of the one thing he has never done. Not caring. Not trying. I will tell you...he went mad...for me. He never quit trying. He never quit fighting the restraints. Not when they peeled our hulls off. Not when they peeled our skins off. He never even passed out. The one thing I could count on, no matter what they were doing or how much it hurt, was that those eyes would be on me. Always on me. They poured acid into his fuel lines and he watched me." Shellshock paused, and shuddered a bit. "He went mad. I watched him go mad, minute by minute. It made me feel free to go mad too. He couldn't save me. I can accuse him of being unprepared. I can accuse him of making mistakes, but I can not accuse him of giving up."

Spike frowned, and downed his beer. He grimaced and his stomach burned, but not nearly as much as his heart.

Shellshock showed no expression, and handed him another beer.

x  
x  
x

Rodimus laughed. It was not an entirely sane sound.

"Your attitude problem has not improved," Magnus told him with a laugh of his own. Not entirely a sane sound either.

"I like my attitude problem," Rodimus told him. "This is fun! I get to cut loose all over Vector Sigma's little plans and no one is actually dying for it!" He spun three-sixty, firing a continuous laser the whole way, except for where it crossed paths with one of his companions. The move cut a nice swath in the drones, but barely reduced their overall numbers. Rodi and Elita were playing off each other's assassin's moves and comparing notes as they went along. Optimus and Magnus were using more traditional Autobot tactics and were blasting and punching their way along.

When this got tiresome, all four would transform and simply plow their way through the field of drones together.

Rodi made some offhand comment about doing this same thing with Kup during their first encounter with the Quints.

All three of Rodi's friends made note of the unconscious, affectionate reference to an Autobot Rodimus had barely acknowledged even existed for the last five years.

Optimus transformed, took to one knee, and simply planted shot after shot after shot in the milling crowd of drones. One of them got behind him and began bashing him on the back with its fists. He let one hand go of his rifle, reached up over his shoulder, and grabbed the offending drone by the head. This he slammed down to the ground beside himself and crushed without ever breaking the rhythm of shots he was squeezing off with his rifle.

His cackling partner paused in hacking drones down with his sword long enough to give Optimus a one-bot standing ovation.

Op threw him the bird.

x  
x  
x

Down in the heart of Cybertron Vector Sigma watched its force of drones dwindling and grew even more desperate. That number of drones, weak as they were, should have still be enough to overrun four Transformers. Especially four Autobots. .... Except, it seemed...these four Autobots.

Of all the ones to be headed it's way...why did it have to these four?

Why Ultra Magnus? The soldier it had forged in pain so long ago? The one who Unicron had cut off from Sigma's influence?

Why Rodimus? Chaotic, unreachable, unfathomable?

Why Elita? The coldest and most brutally practical of all of them? Did her companions even know that? Did they know what millions of years of isolation and adversity had forged her into? Vector Sigma doubted they did, but it knew. It had counted on her foes, or madness, or starvation to solve her pesky life for it. It had ignored her once it had split her from her mate, sure she would fold sooner or later. She hadn't, and now it regretted not moving on her when it would have been so easy....

And why Optimus Prime? So slow to anger...so slow to calm down once the fuse was lit. At this moment Sigma could no more touch Prime's mind than a fusion reaction. He was in a killing rage, and moved through the drones like they weren't even there. Like they were water he was wading through not foes to fight. He was killing more of them with each step, but he was heading for the exit the whole time.

Heading for Vector Sigma.

Nothing was going to stop them.

Sigma then realized Rodimus was merely thinning the crowd so Optimus could pass. The young Prime was clearing the way. Elita was too. Magnus and Optimus were taking advantage and made steady progress towards the next doorway. The drones were not distracting them. The drones were not dissuading them. The drones weren't even really slowing them down that much.

Rodimus and Elita moved like liquid lighting through the crowd. Optimus and Magnus followed like ice-breakers in their wake. The drones weren't really proving to be an obstacle, merely a nuisance.

Vector Sigma's energy was flagging, but it called in more diggers.

x  
x  
x

Omega Supreme landed in the thick of the mob at Crystal City. People had no choice but to move or be crushed. The exit ramp politely extended for his passengers but every one of them ignored it. Springer hopped off into the air and transformed into chopper mode. Blitzwing tore out into the air after him. Arcee and Jazz (and Lancer, though Omega never saw her) jumped from the top into the crowd and hit the ground running.

Jazz transformed and dazzled as much of the crowd as he could. Arcee shouted "What are you doing?" over and over to the throng. Most paid her no attention, but as before some shook themselves awake. Omega did the most damage to Vector Sigma's mind control. He had been repeatedly reminded not to hurt any of the crowd, but Crystal City was his old post and he still felt responsible for it, even as rubble.

Frustrated, he hit the ground and roared for everyone to leave. The resulting boom shook over a hundred Paradronians awake.

They had been ordered to dig and ordered to fight, but this foe was well beyond what many of them were capable of working into their thought-processes - under compulsion or not.

They ran.

Few of the rest turned to fight. Digging they could do. Taking on Omega Supreme even in a dream state was too much of a stretch. Omega kept his no-violence orders in mind, but he began simply grabbing handfuls of diggers and placing them elsewhere. Some of them headed back for the hole, but many were shocked enough at being man-handled by the guardian to run.

That left Jazz and Co. with just a few hundred diggers to slow down. The Specialist blared rock music through his speakers and happily inspired grumbling from the Paradronians, then more desertions.

"Why am I here getting all dirty?" was a common refrain among those that were leaving.

Still, those up front dug doggedly on.

"We have to hurry," Lancer's voice said out of thin air in Jazz's audio receptor. "The boys and Elita are nearly to the chamber, but they've run into a bunch of drones."

"AHH! Your Ladyship you are gonna give me fatal surges! You got any ideas?" Jazz asked.

"No. Not really. Well, not non-fatal ones for a crowd this size," Lancer said. One of the Paradronians went after Jazz with a pipe, but its attack was invisibly blocked and the pipe moved on its own to knock out the attacker.

"Thanks," Jazz said. "What if the crowd was smaller?"

"I could drain them like I did Omega, but this many is too much juice," Lancer said.

"Ok...so we get to the front and you deal with the over-achievers," Jazz said. "Gotta plan!" He radioed Springer and Arcee who were scrambling through and over the crowd, doing their best to shock people to their senses. Springer reminded Lancer of a mockingbird harrying a hawk from the way he dove over and over at the crowd. "Yo! Lovebirds! Help me clear a road down the tunnel! Blitzwing, stay here and help Omega keep late party crashers off our tails!"

"Gotcha Jazz!" Springer responded. Arcee answered by veering towards them.

"I'll barricade the entrance as soon as you get down," Blitzwing told them, transforming and landing beside Jazz.

"Get on," Jazz said to the air beside him, transforming. He heard Lancer chuckle and felt her land lightly on top of him. It was unnerving, feeling her invisible talons lock around the edge of his roof. He sensed she was crouching low and he took that to mean she was ready. He blared the loudest music he could think of and headed for the shaft with Springer and Arcee doing their best to run interference for him. Sometimes though he felt the weight on his roof shift and some diving Paradronian or another would go flying backwards for no apparent reason.

Springer had to abandon his chopper mode as they got to the tunnel, but instead of just landing and transforming like a normal person he did it mid-dive so that he landed a good way down the tunnel from them.

This nearly proved fatal. The robots down here must have been easier to sway because they turned on Springer viciously and nearly beat him to death in the few seconds it took for Jazz, Arcee and Lancer to catch up. Jazz felt a tingle just scant seconds before lightning exploded from one attacker to the next. It was a grisly sight as the robots bludgeoning Springer all convulsed with their optics and mouths illuminated with power-overload.

They all dropped and smoked.

More of their friends suddenly shook themselves and ran.

Arcee transformed and ran to Springers side, helping him up.

"That bunch will need medical attention," the voice from Jazz's roof growled. "Oh...and Springer? Rodimus says if you don't stick with us better he will see to it personally that you need medical attention too."

"Ouch," Springer said. "OK. OK...geez! Thanks Lancer...and tell your mate I love him too."

"Right. The response is 'hah hah... shut up and get to it,'" Lancer said.

Arcee gave Springer a light smack on the back of the head and fended off a hit from a grunt who turned from digging to attack them. She and Springer transformed to auto mode and took off in front of Jazz. They didn't make good speed though. Bumping and pushing diggers out of the way without hurting them was exacting and as they got further down the tunnel became more and more packed.

x  
x  
x

"We're almost there!" Elita cried. She flipped hands over feet and forced both heels into the face of an interfering drone. Its head obligingly exploded.

"Nice one E," Rodimus said. He did a whirling split kick and dropped three more. Magnus just gunned his engines and crushed four of them straight into the wall.

Optimus had split off from his trailer and was using the cannon to cut swaths of destruction across the field while his main component did the same thing with the rifle. "This is taking too long!" he shouted.

"Jazz and the others are making progress topside!" Rodimus informed him. The sword was in motion again and he was cutting drones in two at alarming speed. "Vector Sigma is running out of drones!"

"I'm running out of energon!" Magnus noted. He revved his engines again and roared ahead, only to hit the brakes and deliberately skid out. The whirling trailer sent about a dozen drones flying. One of them flew straight at Rodi and he split it instinctively so the pieces fell to either side of him. He glared at his City Commander who gave him a not too contrite apology.

"Sorry," Magnus said.

"Uh-huh," Rodimus returned.

"Really!" Magnus said.

"Right," Rodimus retorted.

"Will you two shut up and move already?" Optimus snapped.

"Come ON!" Elita shouted. She had made it to the far door. Optimus transformed and merged components. Rodimus and Magnus followed in his wake. The remaining drones literally threw themselves to the ground in front of Optimus' wheels in an attempt to slow him down. He ignored them.

"Nice smooth road," Rodimus commented to Magnus.

"You're sick Rodi," Magnus sighed.

Up ahead Elita was fending off the final defenders. A cache of drones that blocked the tunnel ahead of her so completely that she couldn't see the walls. She heard her mate's engine behind her and heard him crank it up a notch.

She grinned.

He was learning.

For all that his beloved mate was standing in the way Optimus neither veered nor slowed down. He put full power behind his wheels and charged the packed doorway. Elita was cutting and blasting drones as fast as she could, but at the last second before Optimus ran her down she leapt, straight up, turned a neat somersault mid-air, and came down lightly on the roof of his trailer, still firing on drones the whole while.

The crunch of the impact was deafening, as Optimus slammed into what was basically a wall of writhing drones. Like a martial arts master hitting a stack of concrete blocks, the impact traveled through the mass in a shock-wave of force, causing more damage towards the end than the original hit did at the front.

"Ouch," Optimus said. His grill was badly dented, but not enough to slow him down.

"Guess that solves the old unstoppable force, immovable object question," Rodimus said. "But we aren't going anywhere until we clear out all those bodies." He transformed and skidded back around Magnus, defending their six from the remaining drones in the room behind them.

"You need help?" Magnus asked.

"Nah! Clear the roadway. I got this," Rodimus said.

"He's having too much fun," Magnus noted as the rest of them started moving crushed drones.

"We're finally moving on Vector Sigma," Elita pointed out, "Don't tell me you're surprised."

Continued in Part H


	8. Chapter 8

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part H

Continued from Part G

For Jazz and friends such brute force was not an option. None of them had the strength and they were trying really hard not to hurt the innocent Paradronians. Cutting loose like Rodimus was on the mindless drones was not one of their choices.

So they made slow progress, dissuading the people they could awaken, knocking out the people they couldn't, and clearing their way body by body down the swarmed tunnel. Once out of sight of the surface, Lancer de-cloaked. Her disturbing suit, so upsetting to Transformers with its exposed cables and wiring, cleared out a lot of Paradronians without her even making a move. When she did move, it cleared out even more. Exo-suit or not, she moved like an organic, and the liquidly limber motion was in its way as disturbing to the Cybertronians as the rest.

Robots just shouldn't move that way. It was abnormal and frightening on a level most of those that saw her could never place.

The fact that she was leaping from wall to wall, kicking and tossing and growling and punching her way from one opponent to the next without pause didn't help either.

Sigma's victims awoke by the dozens and fled the tunnel screaming.

Watching one sizable group drop their laser diggers and run for home, Lancer shrugged at Jazz and shook her head. "I don't look that bad do I?"

"Sorry little Lady, but ya do," Jazz told her.

She sighed.

"Works for me," Springer said. He was holding his own, but the earlier beating showed in his movements as a distinct slow-down. "The less the better."

"There's the end of the tunnel!" Arcee cried in relief. She was as banged up as the rest of them.

"Jazz!" Lancer said. "Give me a toss will you?"  
He laced his hands together and knelt facing away from the diggers. She went back up the tunnel a short way. She ran at him and landed one foot into his hands and he threw her with all his strength. Lancer sailed over his head and the heads of most the remaining workers. Coming down lightly in their midst, she remained crouched and drew power from all those around her.

It took all of her concentration to drain each individual enough to stop them, but not kill them. They fell in short succession, one after the other in less than a minute. Fifty robots of various size and energy level.

Lancer's eyes glowed and power surged up and down her frame.

Most of the other diggers fled.

"I love you!" Jazz cried, throwing his arms up into the air.

Lancer smirked and aimed one finger at the dead-end tunnel behind her. A bolt of power shot out and the wall exploded. The wall crumbled, and they heard surprised but familiar voices from the other side.

"Get your own," Rodimus told Jazz with a smile, waving one hand in from of his face to clear the smoke. "My love, would ya mind?" he said to Lancer.

She turned and sent all of the excess power she had just harvested on to the drones as she had earlier with the Paradronians. This time though, she didn't hold back. The energy arced from one drone to the next and she didn't let up until they were smouldering husks. When her excess energy was spent, she replaced it by draining the few remaining drones dry. They stood like statues wherever they happened to be.

The remaining Paradronian diggers (about twenty) stood stock still, and Springer guarded them warily as the rest went to help Optimus, Elita, and Magnus clear the way to Sigma's chamber.

Finally, enough of the tunnel was clear enough for everyone to slip through.

They entered Vector Sigma's chamber and found the super computer dimmed from all of its futile exertions.

"Optimus Prime," it whispered, "You once entered my Presence with reverence. You are programmed to respect all life. Would you find it so easy to kill me now?"

"I never find finishing things easy, Vector Sigma, but my respect for life leaves me in no position to spare you. You run rough-shot over the respect you programmed into me. You use us for your own ends and think nothing of our lives, our wills. I am curious...how can you understand that respect enough to plant in us and yet not feel it yourself?"

"I can answer that," Rodimus said. "It doesn't. It programmed you with a pattern of behavior. Something to make you counter to Megatron's opposite pattern of behavior. It was up to YOU to make sense of it...to understand it. For you, it's a philosophy. For it, just programmed code. Vector Sigma doesn't get it. You do."

The computer flared brighter. "I do what I must to survive. You young ones are no different, especially your partner Optimus, who so indignantly accuses me! Rodimus Prime! You have killed two Autobots with your own hands and your partner doesn't even know it...and you have considered killing many more."

"I don't deny it," Rodimus whispered.

"Who?" Optimus said. His voice was flat.

"Wheelie...a few months ago...and Snarl...when he disappeared," Rodimus said.

Betrayed!

Optimus felt a huge surge of anger and the rifle came up to point at his partner. Even Rodi the assassin couldn't dodge at this range. Killing rage, on a scale that Optimus had never felt before made his hand quake with tension. His trigger finger convulsed...and yet...he had sworn never to let blows come between him and Rodimus again. He wanted to attack Rodimus with all he had...and yet.... Rodimus turned those sad/angry optics towards him. He met Optimus' stare without fear and Optimus knew he was being pushed.

The obvious came to him through the haze of hatred. "They were Converted?" he growled, every servo quaking with barely contained fury.

"Of course they were," Rodimus said. His voice was calm. If he was concerned about Optimus' obvious desire to kill him he gave no sign.

Lancer laughed.

The sound was so out of place, so utterly alien to the oppressive heat of hatred that filled the room. It seared through the fog infecting Optimus' mind like a laser.

"Oh give it up!" she laughed at Vector Sigma. "They have so outgrown you! Can't you sense it? You can't control them any more! They've taken their minds back from you. Even the Paradronians were resisting you left and right."

"They have been out of my influence for centuries!" Vector Sigma protested, rationalizing its weakness.

"You only prove my point. They've evolved..isolated...without even humans to influence them," Lancer smirked. "Can the big, bad super computer spell obsolete?" She laughed again, and this time her mate, and then the others joined her.

Vector Sigma's light flared and ebbed. They were laughing. Never in its eons long existence had it dreamed there would come a day when its subjects would laugh at it.

Fury lent it a final burst of strength. It reached out and convinced Springer in one overwhelming instant that he was too tired to avoid shut-down and the triple-changer collapsed to the floor.

The remaining diggers, those most susceptible to Sigma's sway, came the rest of the way behind the heretic Autobots.

They heard them coming and turned to face a new assault, but that was not Sigma's plan.

Each of the faithful was holding their laser-digger up under their chin.

"So, Optimus Prime," the computer taunted. "Have you so forgotten who you are that you will let these innocents die merely to kill me? I will promise never to interfere with your minds again. I will perform whatever tiresome tasks this young rouge Prime sets before me. You must let me live. I am your only way to new ones anyway. You must give your word and I will release them."

"I don't trust you," Optimus growled.

"What did you do to Springer?" Arcee roared. Her weapon turned on Sigma and trembled just as Prime's had a few seconds earlier.

"Rodimus just blow that damned thing already!" Magnus shouted.

"You may kill me but they will all die with me!" Vector Sigma vowed.

"*TK*" said Pagan.

She and Kain teleported in at Lancer's feet. The exo-suit vanished and Lancer smiled at her friend.

"You are a bit late for the party Pagan," Lancer said.

"We had to re-grind the scales and bones of my grandmother," Pagan said proudly. "She did not powder easily."

"Ah..." Lancer said. She decided not to comment too much on that.

Kain was burdened with full ceremonial armor and gear. He wore a full two hundred pounds of plate armor, a barbaric looking steel weapon, an elaborate titanium headdress, black and purple feathers, and a cloak made from the skin of a distant ancestor. (This last was a great honor to the deceased individual whose hide was made into a permanent ceremonial object, rather than used as ingredients or something trivial like a pillowcase.)

He raised his arms before Vector Sigma in a gesture that had nothing to do with the walls of isolation which suddenly surrounded Sigma's mind. Used to processing data from thousands of minds all over Cybertron at all times, the silence nearly over-loaded Sigma's circuits.

There was a loud clatter. All of the Paradronians dropped their diggers and stood staring around them in confusion. Realizing they had just been about to commit suicide incited panic and they fled. The following weeks would see a surge in clients for Cybertron's mental health professionals as members of the mob tried to work out what happened to them.

Arcee followed the fleeing civilians out of the chamber and found Springer awakening slowly. She helped him back to the chamber where everyone was standing silently, watching Kain do absolutely nothing that they could see.

Whatever he did, they could feel though. Like an ambient noise taken for granted until it ceases, Cybertronians all over the planet suddenly looked up and around themselves. Something was different. Most would never know what, but they sensed something had been removed from their lives. Something wrong. Something toxic.

Kain went about his task with emotionless efficiency. He cared nothing about Vector Sigma or the souls it had manipulated. All he cared about was that it might have information that led to the demise of the Jabez. That demise was his ticket back to his home-world and the life he wanted.

Kain did his work well.

After about five minutes of telepathic surgery he stopped his slow, snakelike swaying and turned to Lancer.

"I have destroyed its ability to reach out with its mind. I have also destroyed its ability to lie or withhold information. It will tell you anything relevant to your questions and anything it thinks you should know. There will be no holding back."

Lancer gave Kain a small, ceremonial bow that she knew Pagan's people used in thanks. This only seemed to offend Kain and he bid Pagan to remove him to the Maelstrom.

Lancer sighed. "When I thank him like a human I'm uncivilized. When I do it like a Drazi I'm presumptuous."

"You know better than to bother...or be bothered by him," Rodimus said. His voice was truly cheerful.

She smirked at him.

"Will you help me keep these guys from destroying this disco ball for a while longer?" Rodimus asked.

Lancer grinned and put herself between the Autobots and Vector Sigma.

"OK, Piece of Shit. You can't lie anymore! Now...TALK!" Rodimus roared.

x  
x  
x

Hours and hours later a slump shouldered, singed, foot-dragging command staff trudged its way out of the tunnel Vector Sigma's pawns had dug. Except one. One bounced up.

None of them wanted to deal with the mess they were passing, so no one commented on it, hoping it would just go away by itself and afraid the slightest acknowledgment would get them assigned to fix it. They were happy to see Omega Supreme still jealously guarding the ruins around the hole even though all of the diggers had run for home. This time he didn't need convincing to give them a ride back to Central. Blitzwing agreed to stay and guard the tunnel until Omega could get back. The Guardian's new post would be at the top of this tunnel until it could be sealed.

Central had a hole in the side where the command center's communications room used to be.

"What?' Optimus asked. There was more to the question but that was all he could manage.

"Oh," Jazz said. "Outback, Blurr, and Blaster." There was more to the answer too, but Optimus nodded as if he had just been given a full report.

"Well, we needed to redecorate anyway," Rodimus chirped. "Maybe we can send for wall-paper swatches in the morning." He didn't seem at all perturbed when no one answered him. "I'm sure Neon has a few ideas."

"Never knew NOT killing something took so much energy," Magnus muttered.

"Me neither," Springer said listlessly.

"I can't believe we let that thing live another day," Magnus growled, glaring at Rodimus.

"Well," Rodi said, "It says specifically in my job description that I am supposed to look out for the well-being of the Autobots and I thought that letting them go extinct would, ya know, be bad for that."

They entered the building together and Rodimus went ahead of his companions to call and hold a lift for them.

"Command center or recharge?" he asked.

"What do you think?" Optimus snapped. He and Elita we leaning on the wall and each other. "We recharge...you take all that energy and deal with the command center."

"It's not my fault Lancer gave me a boost before they left!" Rodimus said. "If you guys hadn't kept charging Vector Sigma she might have had enough left for you guys too."

"I still say that was favoritism," Springer protested. Of all of them, he was in the worst shape.

"I was the only one who never tried to kill the thing! I got a prize for being good," Rodimus rationalized.

"Oh sure," Arcee complained. She was tired too, and helping Springer walk upright wasn't improving things. Rodimus did take enough pity on her to help Springer off the lift when they got to the recharge center. This was not a resting chamber or anyone particular robot's place to rest, it was simply an area where anyone who found themselves low on power could regain some quick energon during the day. The racing and the fighting had taken a toll on every one of them, but listening to Vector Sigma spill its version of their history had caused such a case of profound surges in its audience that most of their remaining strength had gone to emotional overload.

There were five recharge stations which were rarely used, let alone all at once. Optimus decided he would go with Rodimus to the command center until a station was free and followed his partner back onto the lift.

Optimus noted, as he went to lean on the back wall, that Rodimus was suddenly quite subdued and looking at his feet.

"Pause lift," Optimus said.

Rodimus looked at him and arched a brow. "You OK?"

"No. No I'm not." Optimus said. "I have just realized that this is the first time you and I have be alone in the same room since we supposedly patched things up after the fight over Springer and Arcee. After all these years, I have to assume that is no accident, is it? We both are careful about never being alone together, aren't we? We can't even look at each other. Some partnership."

Rodimus sighed, but didn't argue.

"Why didn't you tell me about Wheelie and Snarl? I knew Wheelie died at the same time as Daniel, but you never told me he was Converted first. You never told me you killed him. What about Snarl? You just let us believe he wandered off or something! Rodimus you helped organize the search party! You even went out to search!"

"It wouldn't have changed anything if I told you," Rodimus said sadly. "It wouldn't have brought him back."

"It would have let me know the state of my people! It would have let me know the state of my partner!" Optimus accused. "Damn it Rodimus! You used to trust me!"

"You don't trust me either," Rodimus snapped.

Optimus got geared up to deny that statement and then stopped. It was true. Vector Sigma confirmed that it had been working on eroding the council from within, starting with the Primes. It had worked. Optimus second-guessed everything Rodimus said and did.

"You think I think of you as too young to have good judgement," Optimus realized.

"You do think I'm too young and worse, you think I'm corrupt! I think you're too old and set in your ways to adapt to reality!" Rodimus sneered. "Some of that we can blame on Sigma but I really don't think you can handle what I have to do. So no! I don't trust you and I have no illusions that you trust me."

The truth festered between them.

"What happened to Snarl?" Optimus demanded.

"I don't know exactly. I was just checking on the Dinos and when I scanned them Snarl came up positive for Conversion. I traced the chip's signal back to a group of slavers. They thought he'd make a good spy. No one would suspect him of espionage since obviously he wasn't cut out for it. I took them down, I dealt with Snarl, and I snuck his body into the smelter," Rodimus reported coldly.

"I'm sorry you think I'm so weak that I couldn't handle that information Rodimus," Optimus rumbled. "I understand the problem with Conversion perfectly well and I don't get that in any way confused with assassinating members of the Autobots who HAVEN'T been Converted."

"It's my fault he got taken in the first place," Rodimus said. "I didn't need to hear it from you. It's bad enough I question everything I do...that I think of myself as incompetent but since there weren't any better suggestions coming from anyone else I had to keep on it didn't I?"

"Do you hear yourself? How can it be exclusively your fault Snarl got Converted? We are partners! When one of OUR people gets taken why is it just on your head?" Optimus cried. "Do you really think I would have blamed you?"

Rodimus met his optics and they glared at each other. Optimus drew back.

Finally Prime said, "Great Cybertron...maybe I would have. I have been so...so ready to find fault with everything. I thought you were straying and that I had to keep you in line."

Rodimus nodded. "There are days, when I am so overwhelmed it is all I can do to stand, Optimus. I spent so much energy always accusing myself, sure that I was screwing up, but I had to go on. I had to keep at it. I would just love another course of action, but until we have one I am the Slaver exterminator around here. I couldn't go on hating myself so much and then have you add to it. I can't handle all the death and the guilt it brings. Not and take you on too. I never really made a decision about it. I just tried staying out of your way." Rodimus kicked the wall repeatedly during this confession.

"Are we so blind?" Optimus whispered in horror.

"Apparently we're both morons," Rodimus smirked.

"Well, at least I'm in good company," Optimus said.

"Not so loud! The damage to your reputation might be permanent!" Rodimus told Optimus seriously.

"Can we fix this?" Optimus asked.

"I don't know, but if we don't I'm not sure we have a prayer," Rodimus said.

"I really don't think you are incompetent...or corrupt Rodimus Prime," Optimus said. "I have worries about what we do, but I blame us all for that, not just you."

"I don't really think you're weak either. I think I started off trying to protect you and it sort of turned into that," Rodimus answered. "Normal stuff, all around, that Sigma twisted into poison. It nearly had us Optimus. If we can't learn to be friends again it might still win. Honestly, if Lancer and I hadn't gotten lost to be with versions of you all that weren't being toyed with I probably never would have noticed."

"Now that it's neutralized it should be easy," Optimus said.

Rodimus shook his head, "It won't be. These are thought patterns, and you can't just wipe them away. They are really OUR thoughts pushed to the extreme most of the time. Lancer went into my mind and found the suggestion Sigma planted in me. She destroyed it, but thinking of myself as a screw-up is a habit and I still think it. Lancer's better at catching it than I am, and she's always hounding me about it. I have a watch-dog in my head and I STILL have a hard time. It's going to be difficult for all of us." He frowned at his partner, "Especially for you."

"Because it tampered with me the most," Optimus sighed.

"And the longest. Optimus, your love of life and peace was there when you were Orion. Vector Sigma used that to its advantage, but that doesn't make it wrong! You should be disturbed by what's going on! Optimus Prime has always been the Autobots' best moral compass! We need you for that. You just need to...to...quit making it into a weapon to torture me with. I hate killing too. I hate it, but I have to quit hating myself, and it would sure be nice if you could quit hating me."

"I don't hate you!" Optimus said.

"I thought you wanted to start being honest with each other again," Rodimus said icily. He couldn't help it. The resentment and bitterness showed.

Optimus stared at him.

"I'm not stupid Optimus," Rodimus felt the need to point out.

"I'll work on it," Optimus vowed.

Magnus voice cut in through both their communicators. "What's the hold up with the lift?" Are you two stuck?"

"No," Optimus said. "Not anymore."

When Optimus and Rodimus stepped off the lift into the ruined command center the two Primes were dinged, dented, and grim of countenance. Three very worried Autobots almost dove out the hole in the wall and down to the surface some 200 stories below them.

Outback started to say something but Blurr interrupted.

"We didn't mean it don't know why we did it is Jazz ok were you in a fight too please please please don't be mad at us Blaster's been very busy and Outback is trying to pick stuff up and so am I but there's not much left which is not really my fault because Jazz kept knocking me out but Outback threw stuff around and Blaster um blasted lots of it to smithereens with his speakers I hate it when he does that it hurts my audios and did I say we're really really really sorry?"

Optimus and Rodimus looked at each other.

Laughter was not the response Blaster and Outback expected but they weren't going to complain either.

x  
x  
x

Forty eight hours later:

"Why are you doing a full work up First Aid?" Optimus asked in his most reasonable tone.

"Because you are almost due for your annual and since I have Ratchet here to help me I thought I might as well get it over with," First Aid said nonchalantly. "You did a real number on your grill and some of the struts underneath need to be replaced."

"Hmmph," Optimus responded and subsided. He was the last of the council to get repaired at his own insistence - aside from Rodimus. Rodimus had argued reasonably that he was in better shape than anyone else on the council and that his Jabez-tweaked repair systems would handle most of the damage anyway.

Optimus understood what Rodimus had meant by them all needing time to work out their Sigma-compulsions. It had been all he could do to not argue with Rodimus about it just for the sake of countermanding him. He had to force himself to see the plain logic in what Rodimus was saying.

It made Optimus want to head back down the tunnels and blast Vector Sigma to shards.

Instead he lay quietly while First Aid took overlong examining and repairing him, conferring with "Ratchet" for what seemed unreasonably long periods of time.

Finally he was done, and got up to meet Elita who was waiting for him after her own repair/inspection session. Rodimus was walking into First Aid's temporary new lab underneath Central's first sub-floor. It wasn't an ideal location - right under the generators and pumps that ran large portions of the huge complex. It was noisy and they were glad to leave.

They gave Rodimus a friendly wave and he winked at them as they passed by him.

"He seems...better," Elita said in a loud whisper.

"I think we cleared the air a little," Optimus confessed.

Elita smiled hugely. Only then did Optimus realize how worried his mate had been about them. He hugged her to him as they walked, by way of wordless apology. It was really hard to hear down here.

Still, as happy as they both were, they were surprised to hear Rodimus shouting clearly through all the din and closed doors to boot.

They hadn't realized he had so much to be happy about.

Just a few hours later (a lot longer than he'd anticipated) Rodimus contacted his partner. He had been ready to chase Op and Elita down the hall to give them the news but First Aid and Ratchet insisted he be checked out. Ratchet then spent way too long pointing out where Rodimus had been modified and the two medics spent a while debating which changes had been made by the Matrix and which had been made by the Jabez.

This debate got so heated that Rodimus had finally realized they weren't even examining him any more and told them he was leaving. They both waved goodbye in such a distracted fashion he was pretty sure they didn't really hear him.

Good enough. He walked out silently, transformed and raced for Op's quarters, asking that Optimus and Elita meet him there. For all that he was coming from the basement and they were only two floors up from their home, he beat them there.

x  
x  
x

"What's this about Rodimus?" Optimus asked, trying to sound curious, not suspicious.

Rodimus heard the slightly cool edge to the question and reminded himself not to be hurt by it. It was going to be a long road. Maybe this would be a good way to start.

"I have some things to confess..." he told them.

Optimus stiffened, and then ushered him inside.

Elita offered Rodi a seat but he couldn't. She sat down, but Optimus stood opposite his partner with his arms crossed.

"Optimus sit down," she said. She had been arguing with her mate over this business with Rodimus for almost four years now and she was sick of it....even more now that she knew a lot of it had Vector Sigma at its core.

"I'd rather not," her mate said.

"Orion..." Elita purred.

He looked at her, sighed, and sat. After all these millions of years together, he didn't need more than his name to know she was telling him he was being unreasonable and hurtful, that he should curb his reactions, be more patient with his partner, and that she would make him sorry later if he didn't.

Rodimus smiled at that and Optimus bristled. He took the smile as mocking and sarcastic and...and wow had Vector Sigma really worked his thoughts over. Rodimus wasn't mocking anything - that smile was genuine and happy. Seeing them together made him happy. Optimus felt chilled. How was he going to get rid of these negative filters if Rodimus couldn't even smile without setting things off?

"I've got to talk to you two. Think of it as a peace offering OK? I have been holding back one thing since my so-called vacation and I want you two to hear it first."

"Why not the whole council Rodimus?" Elita asked.

"They'll be next, but I want your insight into how to break it to them and when. It involves when we may or may not really kill off Vector Sigma."

"We need it to reproduce...wretched thing," Optimus argued.

"Well...that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I um...interfered with your medical exams today. First Aid gave you more than a standard physical," Rodimus confessed.

Optimus brindled. "You have no business meddling with our medical care Rodimus! Not without our permission! That is between us and our doctor and it is obviously not a life or death problem! You don't know where to stop and you are over the line!"

"ORION!" Elita cried. "Let him finish!"

"Elita we are entitled to privacy! Every Autobot is entitled to that much!"

"It's OK Elita," Rodimus said softly.

"I've watched the two of you go from being good friends and better partners to complete strangers! It is not OK," Elita said. "And don't blame Vector Sigma for all of it either of you. You let it happen. Orion you are STILL letting it happen!"

"There is nothing the Jabez are doing that would justify him invading our privacy that way!" Optimus snapped.

"Orion...let him finish," Elita said very slowly. Her tone of voice never changed, but Optimus sulked down into his seat.

"It's not the Jabez really....it's Vector Sigma," Rodimus said. "I had to be sure. I had to have everyone tested. If I'd have said anything too soon you might have killed it and besides it might not work here. I just didn't want anyone's heart broken."

"Rodimus what the hell are you talking about?" Optimus snarled.

"We don't need it. Optimus we don't need it for anything! We can reproduce without it like they can in the other universe!" Rodimus said joyfully.

The Autobot's first couple stared at him.

"I need to sit down," Optimus said.

Rodimus looked down at his partner and diplomatically refrained from pointing out that Optimus was already seated

"Are...are you sure?" Elita One whispered.

"Ratchet says all of the anatomy is the same. We were just... ermm... missing a key step during the interface process. Humans need to take steps to keep from getting pregnant. For us, we need take deliberate steps to form a new spark. I do think we should test it before we put Vector Sigma out for the trash but..."

He never got to finish that thought. Elita tackled him first and his partner was only milliseconds behind her. Rodi mused that if they hugged any harder he was going to have to go back down to see First Aid for repairs.

They finally let him go, but not before Elita kissed him on the cheeks. Then she smacked her mate lightly on the shoulder strut.

"See? Next time let him finish! The worst thing Vector Sigma did was to stop you two from talking to each other," Elita said.

"We know," Optimus said, obviously torn between sadness and elation. "I take everything he says and does badly."

"And I let it get to me too much," Rodimus finished. "We'll make it Elita. I promise."

"So sure are you? I don't think it's going to be that easy," Elita said.

"Oh if it was just us, I'd worry, but you and Lancer won't let us screw it up," Rodimus laughed.

Elita grinned at him. "My mate needs to start listening to me, but you can't help listening to yours."

"Right. Probably better that way. Now...how are we going to tell the others?"

Continued in Part I


	9. Chapter 9

Maelstrom Chapter 34  
Dusk

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original **Maelstrom Comics** and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

**Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes! **

**  
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!  
**

Maelstrom 34 Dusk  
Part I

Continued from Part H

The next day:

"That's absolutely fabulous news Rodimus," Magnus said in a very flat, not at all delighted voice. "And now I'm going to go kill that thing like you should have let me THREE DAYS AGO!"

Rodimus was standing a bit nervously in the doorway to the main council chamber. Jazz stopped jumping up and down and landed at Magnus' side. Magnus was looming over his younger commander, trying to intimidate him out of the way.

"Right you are Man! Let's go Major General!" the Specialist said.

"Guys, that didn't work last time either," Rodimus reminded them.

"So punch me in the face again. See if I care," Magnus said. He inched closer, missing the days when Hot Rod would have cowered back. Rodimus just folded his arms and looked annoyed.

Optimus and Elita watched this exchange with interest. The rest of the council was still too stunned to move.

Springer and Arcee were staring at each other, which Elita found promising. Perceptor had been rescued from his storm cellar for which he had received both praise and criticism from the reunified Primes. Cellar good. No escape route bad. He was muttering under his breath. Usually this meant techno-babble, but in this case it was just babble. Kup was silent, with his chin in his hand. Elita didn't know if his silence meant he was speechless or just too uncomfortable from having been pulled from the tunnels and into the council chamber in the span of five minutes.

"We don't KNOW that it will work yet! I'd like to see a viable breeding population up and running before we kill it!" Rodimus said calmly.

Magnus picked up his chair and threw it into the wall's ultra-shiny surface. It shattered there as if with explosives. Magnus slammed both fists down on the table and leaned on them, trembling.

"That...thing...set up my unit! It killed them just to manipulate me! It sent a mob after my pregnant wife!"

Rodimus grimaced. "I know."

"It toyed with all of us, but that doesn't change our responsibility to our people. Rodimus is right," Optimus said. "You know he is Magnus. We need to wait until we're sure, but at least we have reason to hope now!"

"We need to work out how to tell the populace too, and we need to set up an infrastructure for the newlings when they arrive," Elita said. "We don't have any schools for them, or trained medics, the shell factories are all set up to build only adult sized bodies, we will need care-givers to help parents on duty. We don't even have toys for them. There is so much to do."

"Yeah," Rodimus said. "And we need volunteers to go first. You and I don't count Magnus."

Magnus went for the glare.

"I think we need to let the civilian medical staff in on this first," First Aid said. "We need to give them training for how to help couples get started, how to spot problems at every phase, and how to treat the young ones if something goes wrong."

"I agree," Optimus said. "How are we going to explain all this new knowledge though? I don't think saying 'Rodimus went to another dimension and learned it there' is really that good of a choice."

"I'd rather the Jabez never learned of the other dimension's existence," Rodimus said grimly. "A whole new universe of Converts at their disposal. No thank you."

"What a horrible notion," Elita agreed, shuddering.

"So what are we gonna tell everybody?" Jazz asked. "That someone was just bored with a standard interface, got a little experimental, and hit number one on the charts by accident?"

"Jazz! That's genius!" Rodimus crowed.

"You can't be serious," Optimus said critically. "Who would do something like that?"

"Well, not YOU obviously," Rodimus snapped back instantly.

"Time out!" Magnus belted.

"Boys!" Elita cried at the same second.

Optimus jumped in his seat, then covered his optics with both hands, leaning on his elbows.

Rodimus winced at a chastising only he could hear.

"Sorry Rodimus," Optimus whispered from behind his hands.

Rodimus shook his head, but didn't answer right away. Finally he sagged and nodded, as if to himself. To his partner he said, "My mate takes longer to yell at me than yours does. I'm sorry too."

"Why does this seem to be getting worse instead of better?" Magnus asked grimly.

Optimus, still behind his hands, shook his head.

Rodimus shrugged. "Maybe because we are actually talking to each other instead of avoiding each other? Maybe because we're trying too hard?" Rodi met Elita's worried optics. She was up and rubbing Optimus across the shoulders. The senior Prime still wouldn't look up.

"Optimus...it's OK. Really it is," Rodimus said compassionately.

Optimus shook his head again and didn't answer.

"You two morons were supposed to have worked this mess out when we joined the council," Springer accused. "I know Vector Sigma was pushing you but I can't believe you never made more of an effort than this."

Rodimus winced again. "I told myself I was too busy to be around much, and then I made really sure I was."

Optimus' shoulders shook, just once. From behind his hands his deep voice barely projected. "I made sure he never wanted to be around. I don't know how to get around this Rodi. I promised myself I wouldn't react this way, but I keep wanting to jump down your throat. This should be a joyful discussion not blind contradiction."

"We'll get it back," Rodimus vowed. "Argue with me! Don't fight me! We used to be so good at that Optimus. We could argue all day and it was not only effective, it was FUN. Remember fun?"

"I remember a sort of perverse pleasure at seeing your mad notions get hammered into something useful," Optimus confessed. "As if I had achieved the impossible."

"Well, this is really Jazz's mad notion, but is there something solid in it we can work with?" Rodi asked.

"It solves our initial problem of breaking this news, but not how we know about the stages the youngsters will go through. I don't want to have to keep 'accidentally' discovering things, and I think it's dangerous to leave people ignorant about what has to happen for their new sparks to grow," Optimus said.

"That's true," Rodimus mused. "We want everything in place before the next generation needs it, even the first born."

Magnus sighed, thinking of all the prep work he and Marissa had been doing to make way for their incoming twins. It was time consuming and complicated even though humans knew full well what their offspring needed and had resources readily available. "I wonder why we can even breed this way. It seems so...organic to me."

"I think that was the point Major General. The Jabez that designed us wanted to set up his own way of life in metallic form. I guess he got impatient with waiting for the human breeding project to pay off and decided to try an alternative," Rodimus said.

Magnus mulled that over. "He didn't want to give up getting laid, you mean."

Rodimus chuckled. "You said it, I didn't."

"Can't say I blame him," Magnus muttered with an embarrassed grin.

"If that was the plan all along then why didn't happen that way?" Arcee asked.

"Vector Sigma was probably just supposed to start the first generation or so," Optimus muttered. "The Quints would have wanted to keep more control than that. They wanted slaves, not a functioning species. Once Vector Sigma became self-aware, it wanted to control everything too. Rodimus, if you are right, then we were designed to be self-aware. We were designed to be a new species for that Jabez to interact with. Maybe he would have invited other Jabez to leave their organic bodies to join us as well. It was the Quintissons who suppressed our knowledge of how to breed, followed by Vector Sigma."

"We can go ask it for more on that later," Rodimus grinning viciously. "I sure don't have a problem blaming it all on the Quints right now, do you? We can say, after our first volunteer gets knocked up, that we went looking for answers and found all of this in some dusty old records down in the tunnels."

"Convenient there are no Quints left to argue about it either," Magnus mused.

"There aren't?" Kup asked. The Quints had withdrawn mysteriously and suddenly, but as far as he knew, the reason for their disappearance was unknown.

"Long story," Rodimus told him. "They're gone."

"Gone....how?" Kup asked.

"I'll tell you later," Rodimus promised. He noticed Optimus' hands clenching and realized the first cracks in his friendship with the senior Prime probably stemmed back all the way to the Quint eradication...or maybe even earlier.

"We can make it sound like we're searching our past for other cases and stumbled upon a cache of Quint records," Elita suggested. "If we want we can even invent some and I'll lead some of my old team on the search. They'd be logical to take down into the tunnels."

"Maybe we can even play up like Vector Sigma led us to it," Jazz remarked. "Otherwise lots of folks are gonna protest. You know how they are about the Dinos. I never knew Autobots could be so prejudiced, but a lot of those Paradronians are down-right ugly about it."

"It's not just the Paradronians Jazz," Optimus said grimly. "I've just had to put my foot down with a few people under my command."

"Getting Vector Sigma 'permission' might silence some of it," Rodimus mused. Then he grinned. "Now that's just lovely irony."

"You are gloating," Elita laughed at him.

"Shamelessly," Rodimus purred. "We still need volunteers to be the first Mommy and Daddy. We'll have to be careful who we approach with this unless...." Rodimus' voice trailed off. Arcee had raised her right hand...and lifted Springer's with her left. Rodimus' optics and smile spread even wider. "Unless we have takers right here in this room!" he finished.

Everyone froze in place.

Springer stared at Arcee in plain shock. Arcee stared back at him.

No one moved.

Time held its breath.

Springer stared.

Arcee held his hand up.

Springer stared.

Arcee's left hand relaxed its hold.

Springer stared...but his hand didn't drop down.

Arcee stared.

Springer's hand went tentatively up an inch or two.

Arcee smiled slightly.

Springer's other hand rose up to join the first and Arcee surged out of her chair to wrap her arms around him.

The rest of the council dissolved into cheering.

"Whew," Rodimus told Elita and Optimus. "That's a relief. I was afraid it might have been you guys first!"

"Why? Would that be such a bad thing?" Optimus asked.

"No. Not really, but given the dimension I just visited I was afraid you might, you know...have Hot Rod!"

This froze the happy knot of people surrounding Springer and Arcee in its place.

Ultra Magnus looked at Optimus Prime gravely. "Have girls," he said.


End file.
